The 30th Annual International Symposium on Forecasting was held in San Diego last week. Among the many interesting presentations was Princeton Professor Mark Watson’s discussion of estimating business cycle turning points using a large number of indicators.
Category Archives: recession
Current economic conditions
Yes, we’re still in the economic recovery phase, and yes, it still looks pretty sluggish.
Calling recessions in real time
My latest research paper reviews efforts to supplement the declarations by the National Bureau of Economic Research as to the beginning and ending of economic recessions with determinations made by purely mechanical algorithms.
The sluggish recovery
This week we received more evidence confirming that the U.S. economy has returned to positive, but still disappointing, growth.
The recession is over
That’s the big take-away from today’s report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis that the seasonally adjusted real value of the nation’s production of goods and services grew at a 3.2% annual rate during the first quarter of 2010. But the details behind today’s report suggest that the recovery so far remains pretty weak by historical standards.
More on oil prices and the economic recovery
On Saturday I commented on whether
rising oil prices threaten the economic recovery. Here are some quick links to perspectives from other observers.
Do rising oil prices threaten the economic recovery?
Ten of the 11 recessions in the United States since World War II have been preceded by a sharp increase in the price of crude petroleum. Oil had been holding around $80/barrel over the last month, but traded as high as $87 last week, leading the Financial Times to ask whether oil could give the “kiss of death to recovery.” Here is how I would answer that question.
Looks good to me
Finally we’re starting to see some convincing indications of economic recovery.
Not a textbook rebound
Is this as good as it gets? For the time being at least, it seems to be.
Obama after One Year: Crisis, Response, Recovery
A couple days ago, I presented my views on the policy response to the financial crisis and the Great Recession in a UW Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy / UW CIBER / MITA and ICE sponsored event. The power point slides are here (big file, 1.3MB). I took the latitude as the invited speaker to expand the topic from the Obama Administration’s measures to encompass the response to the crisis and recession from both the fiscal and monetary policy authorities.