The Chinn-Ito index revised and updated to 2014 is now available here.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Mass Shooting Casualties, by Religion of Perpetrator: Muslim vs. Non-Muslim, Updated
A previous post on mass shooting casualties has been widely circulated. Here I update to include recent data, and to normalize by population. An upward trend indicates the incidence of casualties is rising.
Manufacturing and the Dollar’s Value
New industrial output numbers, including for manufacturing, confirm a slowdown in at least part of the tradables sector.
Figure 1: Real value of the US dollar against broad basket (black, left scale), manufacturing production (red, right scale), manufacturing employment (blue, right scale), all in logs, 2013M01=0. Source: Federal Reserve Board, BLS, and author’s calculations.
Both production and employment now on a slight downturn, despite recent dollar depreciation. The dollar is 14% higher in log terms relative to mid-2014.
Kansas in (Technical) Recession
The BEA released quarterly state GDP figures today. As of 2015Q4, Kansas has just experienced two consecutive negative GDP growth, a distinction shared with only three other states — Alaska, Oklahoma and Wyoming (North Dakota experienced three quarters of negative growth, but experienced positive growth in Q4). Over the past five quarters, Kansas has experienced four quarters of negative GDP growth.
Republican Outreach to Asian-American Voters Continues Apace
A poll conducted from April 11 to May 17 by the Asian and Pacific Islander American (APIA) Vote, Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) and AAPI Data provides some interesting results regarding the Republican project to increase influence in this demographic.
Trends in oil supply and demand
Here I review key trends in the oil market over the last decade.
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Guest Contribution: “Fiscal Education for the G-7”
Today, we are pleased to present a guest column 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. This is an extended version of a column appearing at Project Syndicate.
Guest Contribution: “Where is global economic growth heading?”
Today, we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Laurent Ferrara (Banque de France, Head of the International Macro Division) and Clément Marsilli (Banque de France, Economist in the International Macro Division). The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Banque de France.
The latest update of the IMF WEO report has been released on April 12, 2016, and can be downloaded from the IMF web site (for a summary see also this Econbrowser post here). The salient fact of this report is that global GDP growth in 2016 has been revised downwards by -0.2pp years, from 3.4%, as assessed in the WEO update of January 2016, to 3.2%. Those revisions are quite homogeneous across countries (-0.2pp for both advanced and emerging/developing countries), although some commodity-exporters countries are more impacted.
Rich States, Poor States, 2016 Is Out
Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore and Jonathan Williams strike again in this year’s installment of RSPS. According to their report, Utah’s prospects are the best, and Wisconsin’s outlook has risen to #9. Should the residents of these states rejoice?
2016 Econbrowser NCAA tournament challenge winner
Congratulations to Jackiegee, winner of the 2016 Econbrowser NCAA tournament challenge. None of our entrants correctly picked the tournament winner to be Villanova, but Jackie (like a number of others of you) thought it would be UNC, and came within half a second of being right! For fans of Michigan State, West Virginia, and others, better luck next year!