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.
Business Cycle Indicators as of January 26th
New information coming out on Friday, employment in a week and a half. For now:
Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment (dark blue), Bloomberg consensus for January as of 1/26 (blue square), industrial production (red), personal income excluding transfers in Ch.2012$ (green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2012$ (black), and monthly GDP in Ch.2012$ (pink), all log normalized to 2020M02=0. Source: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA, via FRED, IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) (1/4/2021 release), NBER, and author’s calculations.
OECD Weekly Tracker of Economic Activity
Real time estimates of GDP based on Google Trends and machine learning for OECD and G-20 countries, here. Here’s the current US GDP nowcast:
Aggregate Wisconsin Employment Stabilizes, High Contact Services Decline
DWD data released yesterday indicates nonfarm payroll employment broke their two month decline. Private employment rose as well, while manufacturing versus accommodation/food services trend diverged. State and local government employment continued their decline.
Farm Income during the Trade War
Farm income rose – but income from selling farm products fell. Were it not for direct farm support, income would’ve fallen.
“Will Joe Biden’s fiscal stimulus overheat the American economy?”
That’s the title of a new article in the Economist:
There are three main reasons to suspect overheating might be on the cards: emerging evidence that the downturn may prove temporary; generous stimulus; and the Federal Reserve’s monetary-policy strategy.
In Memory
With the Washington Monument in the background, President-elect Joe Biden with his wife Jill Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris with her husband Doug Emhoff listen as Yolanda Adams sings “Hallelujah” during a COVID-19 memorial, with lights placed around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Source: NPR
Guest Contribution: “Increasing Income Tax Progressivity: Trickle Up, Not Trickle Down Economics”
Today, we are pleased to present a guest contribution by Christopher Otrok, Sam B. Cook Professor of Economics, University of Missouri, and Research Fellow, Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis. The views expressed here are our own and do not reflect the official opinions of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis or the Federal Reserve System.
Treasury Secretary Designate Yellen on the Dollar
From Reuters today:
“The value of the U.S. dollar and other currencies should be determined by markets. Markets adjust to reflect variations in economic performance and generally facilitate adjustments in the global economy”, Yellen will say, if asked about the incoming administration’s dollar policy, according to the report.
“Is a Dollar Crash Coming?”
That’s the title of a symposium in The International Economy, with Anders Åslund, Scott K.H. Bessent, Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, Jill Carlson, Stephen G. Cecchetti, Menzie D. Chinn, Lorenzo Codogno, Tim Congdon, Marek Dabrowski, Mohamed A. El-Erian, Heiner Flassbeck, Takeshi Fujimaki, Joseph E. Gagnon, James K. Galbraith, James E. Glassman, Michael Hüther, Richard Jerram, Gary N. Kleiman, Anne O. Krueger, Mickey D. Levy, Thomas Mayer, Jim O’Neill, Adam S. Posen, Holger Schmieding, Derek Scissors, Mark Sobel, Makoto Utsumi, and Chen Zhao.