In one picture. Prices of bacon, eggs, coffee lower than a year ago October, and gasoline lower than a year ago week ending November 13 (all normalized to July 1983=100).
Guest Contribution: “Does the Fed Deserve Credit for the Disinflation?”
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. A shorter version appeared at Project Syndicate.
GDP Q4 Nowcasts of November 17th
Lots of agreement around 2% SAAR, with NY Fed at 2.45%. Here’s a graphic depiction of the implications for the level of GDP.
Business Cycle Indicators, Mid-November
Industrial production is out, -0.6% m/m vs. consensus -0.3%. Here’s the picture of business cycle indicators followed by the NBER’s BCDC, along with SPGMI’s (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) monthly GDP:
Instantaneous Inflation in October
Core PPI flat, vs. +0.3% m/m consensus. Here’re instaneous core CPI and PPI inflation (per Eeckhout):
CRFB at TGTCPL (at UW Madison)
Mike Murphy of the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget gave a presentation at UW’s Tommy G.Thomson Center for Public Leadership, yesterday. I couldn’t attend, but the video is here.
CRFB has handy tool for gaming out modifications to current law to see the impact on the deficit and debt (w/o dynamic scoring). It’s so nifty, in fact, I assigned it to my undergrad public affairs course.
Chinn-Ito Measure of Financial Openness in 2021
Just published, Chinn-Ito index, available here. Normalized to [0,1], with 1 being most open, here’s the world.
GDP and Interest Rate Forecasts and Recession from the SPF
The Q4 Survey of Professional Forecasters was released Monday. Accelerated growth is forecast, no yield curve dis-inversion, and triggering of the Sahm rule.
CPI Inflation in October
Headline CPI flat (below +0.1% consensus), and core CPI inflation at 0.2% (below +0.3% consensus). Here are some pictures of central tendency, trend:
Taiwan Straits Balance of Forces, 2023
From DoD’s 2023 report on PRC’s military and security developments.