From an open letter to Mr. Trump:
A Buy America directive can also hamstring the ability of U.S. pharmaceutical and medical equipment manufacturers to meet our future needs if firms are denied access to essential foreign supplies. Moreover, we can expect our trading partners to adopt retaliatory “Don’t Buy American” barriers targeting U.S. exports as this type of retaliation is already occurring between other countries.
I was wondering about this question as I followed the discussion of how to categorize recoveries. I was reminded by crampell to check the WSJ survey (which requires me to somehow circumnaviate the paywall), and this is what I found.
Today, we are fortunate to present a guest contribution written by Marcelo Bianconi (Tufts), Federico Esposito (Tufts), and Marco Sammon (Northwestern).
Reader Steven Kopits disputes the idea that the US per capita fatality rates can approach those of Italy:
Reporting for the day May 8, the US had the 5th highest death rate (for this day alone, not cumulatively), at 6.8 per million. Interestingly, Sweden was No. 2 at 9.7 per million.
Here’s the top fifteen in order (worst at top) of 84 countries reporting deaths today:
These two individuals have written an extraordinary document entitled “When and Where Will the Recovery Occur? A National and State by State Analysis of the Economic Response to the Coronavirus”. It is the pinnacle of economic hackery.
Today, we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Enrique Martínez-García (Senior Reserach Economist and Policy Advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas). The views expressed here are those solely of the author and do not reflect those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System.
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 in Project Syndicate May 1st.
Today, we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Valerio Ercolani and Filippo Natoli, both of the Directorate General for Economics, Statistics and Research of the Bank of Italy. The views presented in this note represent those of the authors and not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of Italy.
After the economic downturn that followed the outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis, private forecasters see a rebound in the third quarter of 2020 both in the US and worldwide. While this appears as the most plausible scenario assuming lockdown and social distancing measures are soon relaxed, a recessive dynamics through the end of the year cannot be ruled out. A simple probit model augmented with market volatility, which reached its maximum last March, forecasts a more prolonged recession in the United States. Historically, turmoil in financial markets informed us that the associated recessions were not close to the end.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that U.S. real GDP fell at a 4.8% annual rate in the first quarter of 2020. That’s a rate of decline that we only see historically during the worst quarter of a recession.
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As measured by near month futures:
