In case you were wondering, Minnesota continues to outpace Wisconsin.
The Kansas Economy: Three Pictures
The Philadelphia Fed released coincident indices today. Figure 1 shows state-by-state 3 month trends. Needless to say, the outlook for Kansas — that laboratory for supply side nostrums — is not auspicious.
Source: Philadelphia Fed, accessed 26 Oct 2016.
While Alaska seems to be in the running for worst performing, in fact the 3 month (annualized) decline of 4.5% for Kansas is the worst in the 50 states.
“Gaining Currency: The Rise of the Renminbi”
That’s the title of a newly released book written by Eswar Prasad, an authority on the Chinese economy (and international finance).
More on the Kansas Employment Collapse
Brad DeLong reminds me of how badly Kansas is doing, when viewed from a longer perspective.
Kansas and Missouri: Diverging Employment Fortunes
September employment figures confirm that the Kansas economy continues its decline, while Missouri continues to expand.
Wisconsin Nonfarm Payroll Employment Falls
Minnesota, US series continue to rise.
The Mexican Peso and Prediction Markets
I was talking about prediction markets and asset prices (the Mexican peso and the Presidential election, and the pound and Brexit) in my classes this week. It struck me a good time to update this post on the peso’s movements as the odds for a Democratic win change.
Figure 1: USD/MXN exchange rate (blue), and odds of Democratic win in Presidential election, end of day (red). Observation for 10/20/2016 is as of 2:30PM Eastern time. Exchange rate defined so up is MXN appreciation. Source: FRED, Pacific Exchange Services, and Iowa Election Markets.
The adjusted R2 of a bivariate regression of first differences regression (exchange rate in logs) is 0.08, pretty good on a high frequency time series, in my book (t-stat with HAC robust errors is 2.06).
Global Temperature Anomaly, Through September
Source: NOAA
The highest point estimate for the anomaly is for 2016. For 2014, the 95% interval is ±0.09°C [1]. If that is ballpark for the 9 months estimate, then one can’t say that 2016 is hotter than 2015 (with statistical significance at the 5% msl), but can say it is hotter than 1998, a year often focused on by the “hiatus”-ers.
Update, 5:08PM Pacific: Here is a trailing 60 month moving average, ending observation for September 2016.
Source: NOAA
The Recovery in Perspective (Again)
In tonight’s Presidential debate, the moderator Chris Wallace stated:
Secretary Clinton, I want to pursue your [economic] plan, because in many ways it is similar to the Obama stimulus plan in 2009, which has led to the slowest GDP growth since 1949.
Guest Contribution: “Is the Renminbi a Safe Haven?”
Today, we are fortunate to present a guest contribution written by Rasmus Fatum, at the University of Alberta. This post is based upon the Dallas Fed working paper by the same title.