Guest Contribution: “International Macroeconomics in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis”

Today, we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Laurent Ferrara (Banque de France), Ignacio Hernando (Banco de España) and Daniela Marconi (Banca d’Italia), summarizing the introductory chapter of their book International Macroeconomics in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. The views expressed here are those solely of the author and do not reflect those of their respective institutions.

A decade after the eruption of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the world economy has finally returned to a more sustained pace of expansion (see Fig. 1).


Figure 1: World GDP annual growth (in %, constant prices). Source: IMF, World Economic Outlook, April 2018 and July 2018 update
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Official White House Statement on Post-Hurricane Mortality in Puerto Rico

From tweets [1] [2]:

“When Trump visited the island territory last October, OFFICIALS told him in a briefing 16 PEOPLE had died from Maria.” The Washington Post. This was long AFTER the hurricane took place. Over many months it went to 64 PEOPLE. Then, like magic, “3000 PEOPLE KILLED.” They hired……..GWU Research to tell them how many people had died in Puerto Rico (how would they not know this?). This method was never done with previous hurricanes because other jurisdictions know how many people were killed. FIFTY TIMES LAST ORIGINAL NUMBER – NO WAY!

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Excess Casualties in Puerto Rico, According to Mr. Trump

From Mr. Trump, this morning:

3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000……..This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!

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“Unsung Success” in Puerto Rico

Following up on examples of the incredible and unsung success of the recovery effort in Puerto Rico described by Mr. Trump, from Begnaud/CBSNews:

What may be millions of water bottles. meant for victims of Hurricane Maria, have been sitting on a runway in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, since last year, according to @FEMA, which confirmed the news to me, late tonight, after pictures, posted today on social media, went viral.

If 2975 dead is a success, what does a failure look like?

But Mr. Trump did pass out some paper towel rolls.