(Transitory) Revealed Preferences

Here’s the health coverage implications of President Trump’s proposal to repeal Obamacare, as assessed by the CBO:



Figure 1: Effects of H.R. 1628, THE Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act of 2017, on health insurance coverage of people under age 65, in millions, by calendar year. Source: CBO, Table 4.

So, at least for part of one day, the President was content to let an additional 32 million be uncovered by 2026.

A New Puzzle à la Fama

In a forthcoming paper (“The New Fama Puzzle”), coauthored with Matthieu Bussière (Banque de France), Laurent Ferrara (Banque de France), Jonas Heipertz (Paris School of Economics), we re-examine uncovered interest parity – the proposition that anticipated exchange rate changes should offset interest rate differentials. This is one of the most central concepts in international finance. At the same time, empirical validation of this concept has proven elusive. In fact, the failure of the joint hypothesis of uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) and rational expectations – sometimes termed the unbiasedness hypothesis – is one of the most robust empirical regularities in the literature. The most commonplace explanations – such as the existence of an exchange risk premium, which drives a wedge between forward rates and expected future spot rates – have little empirical verification.

Continue reading