Increases in oil production in the United States and the Middle East were certainly key factors in the huge drop in oil prices over the last year. Nevertheless, one can’t help but be struck by the fact that the weekly changes in oil prices correlate with dramatic moves in other commodity and financial markets.
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Government Debt Crowding Out Watch, Fall 2015
As I updated my slides for teaching an economics course on the financial system at UW-Madison, I recreated this graph, which depicts the rise in Federal debt as a share of GDP, and the trajectory of real interest rates, as proxied by several measures.
“Walker job-creation officials promise to do better”
That’s the title of a La Cross Tribune article:
Officials with Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s floundering job-creation agency promised again to do a better job in the wake of another scathing audit and the departure of their second chief officer in just four years.
Guest Contribution: “Misinterpreting Chinese Government Intervention in Financial Markets”
Today we are fortunate to have a guest contribution written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University, and former Member of the Council of Economic Advisers, 1997-99. A shorter version of this column appeared at Project Syndicate.
Labor Day 2015 in Wisconsin
From the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, October 2014, in re: the $7.25/hour minimum wage.
The Department [of Workforce Development] has determined there is no reasonable cause to believe the wages paid to the complainants are not a living wage.
Heckuva job…
Manufacturing, the Dollar and Implications for Monetary Policy
One of the bits of information in the employment release was a decline in manufacturing employment. When added to declining exports and stagnant manufacturing output growth, the case for near-term monetary policy tightening seems more tenuous to me.
Countering the Manitoba Menace
Or, “President Obama, build up this wall!”
Guest Contribution: “Capital Controls in Brazil: Effective”
Today we are fortunate to present a guest contribution written by Marcos Chamon, Senior Economist in the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund, and Márcio Garcia, Associate Professor of Economics at PUC-Rio. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its management, nor its Executive Board.
U.S. tight oil production decline
U.S. oil production has begun to drop in response to low oil prices, but not as dramatically as many had anticipated.
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