The quasi-nomination of Stephen Moore and Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve Board has resurrected the issue of the gold standard. Jim Hamilton has repeatedly — and convincingly — critiqued the idea of a return to the classical gold standard, here, here, here, and here. But here I talk about what a gold standard for the 21st century would entail.
Who’s Supporting Moore for Fed? Institutional Affiliations of Signatories
Yesterday, I posted some observations on the signatories to the letter supporting Stephen Moore for the Fed letter posted [PDF]. Here for the sake of completeness is the list of the affiliations the signatories provided.
Isn’t that Exactly the Definition of…
From Bloomberg:
China is considering a U.S. request to shift some tariffs on key agricultural goods to other products so the Trump administration can sell any eventual trade deal as a win for farmers ahead of the 2020 election, people familiar with the situation said.
Recall Mr. Trump’s attempts to buoy Boeing, intervene in merger talks, support the steel industry through protection, and so forth. Also consider the attempts to politicize the Fed. Now consider this entry from The Library of Economics and Liberty:
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it.
The Campaign Continues: Economists Supporting Stephen Moore for the Fed
We get an inkling from a letter posted [PDF] yesterday, with “105 economists and conservative activists”…signing on
The IMF WEO on Brexit
What did the UK just dodge (temporarily)?
Wall Street Economists Prognosticate: Trade Deficit, Recession Dating
From the April WSJ survey:
Soybean Prices on the Eve of the US-China Trade Deal
Why haven’t they risen?
Data Sources, Again [Updated]
[Updated to include CoRev’s analysis of trends 4/16/2019] I have repeated requests for raw data used in this post, part of which is plotted in this graph. Reader CoRev writes:
…Menzie has admitted he mis-attributed his full range of sources used, and has yet to provide ALL the data he used.
This is not true. I didn’t admit mis-attribution. All I can conclude is that there is some confusion over terms.
Guest Contribution: “The Euro area: Are member countries similar enough to share the same currency?”
Today we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Virginie Coudert (Banque de France and CEPII), Cécile Couharde (EconomiX-CNRS, University of Paris Nanterre), Carl Grekou (CEPII and EconomiX-CNRS), and Valérie Mignon (EconomiX-CNRS, University of Paris Nanterre, and CEPII). This blog post reflects the opinions of the authors and does not necessarily express the views of the institutions to which they belong.
Forward Rate Bias over a Third of a Century
Just updated/cleaned and extended the survey and forward rate data used in Chinn and Frankel (2019) (discussed in this post). Here are preliminary results regard forward rate bias, both pre- and post-crisis.