I’ve recently read some commenters talking about consumption behavior as if it’s a settled matter, particularly with respect to theory. Let me just put that idea to rest.
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Comment policy
Econbrowser has always welcomed a wide range of opinions and spirited discussion from commenters, and will continue to do so. To preserve civility of the discussion, we have two rules. First, comments referring to someone’s racial or ethnic characteristics will not be published. Second, we will block comments that are pure insults with no intellectual arguments.
Implications of Pre-Maria Population Decline for Estimated Excess Mortality in Puerto Rico
In this post, I used IMF estimated data for predicting the counterfactual mortality levels, necessary to calculate excess deaths. It is important to note that by not taking into account the recent population decline, one is probably biasing down estimates of excess deaths.
Predictions With and Without Confidence Intervals: Puerto Rico Post-Maria
Compare this assessment (5/31/2018):
Thus, the data suggests that the hurricane accelerated the deaths of ill and dying people, rather than killing them outright. I would expect the excess deaths at a year horizon (through, say, Oct. 1, 2018) to total perhaps 200-400. Still a notable number, but certainly not 4,600.
With a contemporaneous prediction:
From the survey data, we estimated a mortality rate of 14.3 deaths (95% confidence interval [CI], 9.8 to 18.9) per 1000 persons from September 20 through December 31, 2017. This rate yielded a total of 4645 excess deaths during this period (95% CI, 793 to 8498), equivalent to a 62% increase in the mortality rate as compared with the same period in 2016.
Call for Papers: West Coast Workshop in International Finance
Submission Deadline: August 17th, 2018
The 7th annual West Coast Workshop in International Finance will be held at the University of California, Santa Cruz on Friday, November 9th. (Past workshop agendas can be seen here.)
PoMo Micro
A reader writes (in discussing the Taylor rule):
Like [the] price elasticity of demand, we have an analytical approach that is appealing in theory, but so ill defined as to be useless in practice.
Wow. I haven’t read anything like that since I read Anti-Samuelson. Believe it or not, this was written by a person who purports to do policy analysis.
US Trade Policy Uncertainty in These Times
Just in case you were wondering.
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Measured Economic Policy Uncertainty, Post-Fed Critique, Pre-$500 billion China Tariffs, Pre-Trump/Playboy Tapes
I expect a downward revision tomorrow for today’s value, but tomorrow’s value?
The Ten year-Seven Year Treasury Spread
Some see this as inversion imminent.
World Economic Outlook Update: On Trade Policy Risks
From Maury Obstfeld, IMF, Chief Economist, today:
…the risk that current trade tensions escalate further—with adverse effects on confidence, asset prices, and investment—is the greatest near-term threat to global growth. Global current account imbalances are set to widen owing to the United States’ relatively high demand growth, possibly exacerbating frictions. The United States has initiated trade actions affecting a broad group of countries, and faces retaliation or retaliatory threats from China, the European Union, its NAFTA partners, and Japan, among others. Our modeling suggests that if current trade policy threats are realized and business confidence falls as a result, global output could be about 0.5 percent below current projections by 2020. As the focus of global retaliation, the United States finds a relatively high share of its exports taxed in global markets in such a broader trade conflict, and it is therefore especially vulnerable.