From Bloomberg, Matthews and Shah, “High-Frequency Charts Show U.S. Economy Softening From Delta”:
Chinn-Ito Financial Openness Index, Updated to 2019
We first constructed the index nearly 20 years ago! See the website for the data.
Measured Inflation in July
A CNN headline notes “A key inflation measure rose at fastest pace in 30 years in July”, with that key inflation measure being the year-on-year (y/y) personal consumption expenditure (PCE) inflation. In point of fact, that headline was actually incorrect as annualized m/m inflation was actually slightly higher in June. But in any case, by focusing on the y/y rate, they missed the main message In today’s release — that month-on-month (m/m) annualized PCE inflation was down sharply, from 6.6% to 5.1%. Moreover, the core counterpart was also down, from 5.8% to 4.1% (0.3% m/m hitting the Bloomberg consensus on the nose.)
Guest Contribution: “The G20 agenda in the pandemic’s year 2”
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.
Guest Contribution: “Inflation Prospects: A Difficult Transition for Policymakers”
Today we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Jongrim Ha (Senior Economist), M. Ayhan Kose (Chief Economist and Director) and Franziska Ohnsorge (Manager) from the World Bank’s Prospects Group. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this blog are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent.
Messages from the (Bond) Market
Today, the CEA published a blogpost on how the administration’s infrastructure and Build Back Better plans won’t be inflationary. I think it’s of interest to see how the market (which will undoubtedly turn out to be wrong) thinks inflation and output will evolve.
Video tour of Mars
From NASA.
Finding Your (Academic) Roots
There’s a nifty website where you can trace out the intellectual lineage of your favorite academic (or not so favorite, as the case may be). Here’s mine:
GDP at Risk? (update)
An increasing amount of GDP is accounted for by counties with rising fatalities, a slight change from a couple weeks ago.
How Long Can Florida’s Economy Grow with the Governor’s Current Public Health Measures Stance?
Actually, I should write “Anti-Public Health Measures Stance”… The CDC released the ensemble forecasts of 8/16 yesterday.