While the latest GDP figures suggest an economy that continues to grow, today’s employment data are more consistent with the claim that the U.S. economy has entered a recession.
Category Archives: recession
Not quite a recession
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported today that U.S. real GDP grew at a 1.9% annual rate in the second quarter of 2008, less than many analysts had been predicting a week ago, but substantially better than the 6-month-ahead predictions for that number that we were hearing back in January.
Quarter 2 may come out OK, but challenges remain
At least that’s the assessment of Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco economist John Fernald (hat tip: Mark Thoma).
IMF on the Global Macroeconomy, CBO on US-China Trade
The IMF released an update to it’s World Economic Outlook yesterday.
IMF Gloomy on Growth, Sees Rising Inflation Threat
- Global economic growth to slow significantly in second half of 2008.
- Rising energy, commodity prices have boosted inflationary pressure
- Need to adapt to shift in purchasing power from commodity users to producers
The Government’s Macroeconomic Series: X-Files, Dilbert, or Resource Constraints?
Or, is the model for explaining why macro data sometimes appear so counter to intuition best explained by willful deception (Iraq and WMDs), incompetence (the FEMA response to Katrina), or prosaic (resource constraints)? The casual reader might think I’m overstating the extreme hypotheses, but there is, after all, a whole website devoted to the proposition of conspiracy:
Have you ever wondered why the CPI, GDP and employment numbers run counter to your personal and business experiences? The problem lies in biased and often-manipulated government reporting.
Recession and the oil shock of 2008
Unfortunately, this seems to be unfolding according to script.
Lecture on regional business cycles
The lecture I gave at the Society for Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics Symposium in San Francisco two months ago on regional business cycles (earlier summarized here and
here) is now available via video streaming (courtesy of Bruce Mizrach and the SNDE). Note you have to click through the slides yourself as the lecture proceeds, and it seems to work with Internet Explorer but not Firefox.
Update and Summary: Economic Activity Measures
New aggregate indicators on the macroeconomy are out. How do they compare against a summary measure of the macro series the NBER BCDC focus on?
A bit of sunshine
Consumers say they’re gloomy, but why are they still spending?
Housing and the oil shock
The housing downturn and rising gasoline prices are each exerting a significant contractionary influence on U.S. GDP. There is also an interactive effect between the two.