Contra this comment, the data suggests otherwise.
Remembering the 2022H1 Labor Market Collapse Hypothesis
Mr. Steven Kopits asserted that the Philadelphia Fed’s early preliminary benchmark supported a recession in 2022H1, to wit:
You, Menzie, held the Est Survey was more likely right. You wrote: So: (1) I put more weight on the establishment series, and (2) the gap between the two series is more likely due to increasing, and biased, measurement error in the household series, rather than, for instance, primarily increases in multiple-job holders. https://econbrowser.com/archives/2022/12/the-household-establishment-job-creation-conundrum
Dead wrong, as it turned. And predictably so.
You were wrong because you did not consider the statistics more holistically. That’s the learning point for your students. Cross check your indicators if you have dials which are telling you different things. If jobs are increasingly rapidly, then GDP should also be up. If jobs are increasing rapidly, then mobility and gasoline consumption should also be up, because so many people need to drive to work in this country. Finally, if productivity is imploding when jobs are up, you really need to take a pause and put together some sort of narrative as to why that might be happening. It suggests something anomalous in the data which requires closer inspection.
Had you done that, Menzie, you might have concluded as did the Philly Fed…
What remains of that hypothesis? Well, on March 16th, the Philly Fed released this update.
Nonfarm Employment Rises
In line with expectations.
Mark Sobel on “(Why) The Dollar Is Still King?”: Video
Mark Sobel, former Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary, Executive Director at the IMF, current US Chair of OMFIF and senior adviser at the CSIS , presented his views on the future of the international monetary system on Tuesday. The video is now available, here.
Guest Contribution: “Gauging Recessions with the Jobs-Workers Gap – April 2023”
Today, we are fortunate to present a guest contribution written by Paweł Skrzypczyński, economist at the National Bank of Poland. The views expressed herein are those of the author and should not be attributed to the National Bank of Poland.
Art and Music Friday on Econbrowser
Billionaire Crow and the acolytes (it’s apparently not a photo, but a piece of photorealism):
Weekly Macro Indicators through End-March
Here’re some indicators at the weekly frequency for the real economy.
Private NFP Growth Predicted using ADP Data
Using the correlation between log first differences for BLS nonfarm payroll employment and ADP, I get the following prediction or “nowcast” for the BLS number to be released tomorrow:
Guest Contribution: “Inflation in the euro area: A view from the price level”
Today, we’re pleased to present a guest contribution by Laurent Ferrara (Professor of Economics at Skema Business School, Paris and Director of the International Institute of Forecasters).
Coincident Index, Monthly GDP, and GDP+
The divergence between performance recorded by primarily labor market indicators (in the coincident index for February released today) and output based indicators persists.