My answer on Marketplace yesterday was essentially “why not”. On macro grounds, with prospects for economic activity softening, a bit of insurance isn’t too crazy.
Exchange Rates: Some Recent Papers
I’ve spent the last week at the NBER’s Summer Institute, attending sessions on International Finance and Macro, International Asset Pricing, and International Trade and Macro (among others)…Here are some interesting/provocative exchange rate papers I saw presented (if off the list, I might’ve missed the paper’s presentation). Other interesting papers in a near-future post.
Is There a Relationship between Inflation and Unemployment?
Or, old fogey downloads data, finds a negative relationship, a.k.a. the Phillips Curve…
Using Survey Expectations in FX Analyses
At the NBER IFM Summer Institute session on exchange rates yesterday, the debate over the use of survey data rekindled. In Exchange Rate and Interest Rate Disconnect, Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan and Liliana Varela used survey data on exchange rate depreciation. The discussant Adrian Verdelhan (MIT) and audience members questioned whether such data actually measured what we thought they measured market expectations.
Did So-Called Obama Era Regulatory Uncertainty Hurt Agricultural Equipment Investment?
As implied by WSJ ed board, via Thune, e.g. Mebbe. Sure doesn’t look like it at first glance. On the other hand, through 2018, Trump’s trade policies and associated trade policy uncertainty haven’t helped much…
The New Fama Puzzle Persists
Comparing shipping costs and industrial production as measures of world economic activity
That’s the title of my latest contribution at Vox CEPR Policy Portal.
Of Sugar Highs, Uncertainty, and Recession
Growth is already slated to decelerate, but in the absence of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it might have decelerated even more; on the other hand in the absence of crazy high policy uncertainty, growth might have been faster…
Continue reading
Guess the Expiration Price of July 2019 Soybean Futures
On July 12, 2019, the soybean futures contract (CBOT) for July 2019 expires (first delivery on 7/16). On July 12, 2018, the closing price was 885.75 (data from ino.com here). What’s your guess on what the expiration price will be?
Recession Watch, July 2019
With the release of nonfarm payroll employment (NFP) numbers today, we have a new set of readings on indicators emphasized by the NBER BCDC (used in dating the end of the 2001 recession), since my last post on recession indicators. While NFP continues to trend upwards, industrial production, personal income excluding current transfers, manufacturing and trade industry sales are all below recent peaks. Monthly GDP has risen to match the last peak in January 2019.