Maybe, maybe not. With the employment release of Friday, here’re the pictures, first of NBER’s BCDC key indicators, and second of alternative indicators (recalling all the most recent data will be revised):
Durables consumption has experienced extreme volatility over the last 9 months (since the election). However, services and nondurables should follow the permanent income hypothesis — at least halfway (DSGE’s usually incorporate about 50% hand-to-mouth consumers). So what do we see?
Policy uncertainty through 8/1:
CEA Chair Miran asserts that some of the surprise in the employment numbers is due issues of seasonality. Can we see that? I can’t…
As of 1:35PM CT today, the President has fired the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, within 6 hours of the latest employment release. So what all of feared about the safety of the independence of our economic statistical agencies has come to pass. We might as well delegate the employment numbers to Kevin Hassett at the NEC.
Tales from the Employment Situation release for July: (1) July Establishment employment change below consensus; (2) Revisions make trends slower; (3) Adds data indicating a slowdown.
Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and Sohaib Nasim. A shorter version appeared at Project Syndicate.
Baker, Bloom and Davis and Caldara et al. measures:
Though not quite to February rates: