That’s the title of a new book by Ayhan Kose and Marco Terrones, just released.
Assessing the Counter-cyclical Macro Policies of the Great Recession
There are at least two ways of proceeding. One could repeat the following mantra endlessly:
[T]he government taxes or borrows the resources used to build infrastructure projects. Government spending crowds resources out from the rest of the economy. More federal spending comes at the expense of a smaller private sector.
These factors explain why the 2009 stimulus failed. So did Japan’s decade-long attempt to stimulate its economy through infrastructure projects. The Japanese wound up with massive debt, superhighways in underpopulated rural districts—and an anemic economy.
Links for 2015-10-18
Quick links to a few items I found interesting.
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Guest Contribution: “Migration, “Free” Trade and China in History”
Today we are fortunate to have a guest contribution by Robert J. Schwendinger, former Executive Director of the Maritime Humanities Center of the San Francisco Bay Region, and author of the newly republished volume Ocean of Bitter Dreams: The Chinese Migration to the United States, 1850-1915 (Long River Press).
Economic effects of shocks to oil supply and demand
How can we estimate the separate economic effects of shocks to oil supply and demand? I’ve just finished a research paper with Notre Dame Professor Christiane Baumeister that develops a new approach to this question.
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To what problem is this legislation a solution to?
People with concealed weapon licenses would be allowed to carry guns inside the buildings and classrooms of Wisconsin’s public universities and colleges under a bill introduced Monday by two state legislators.
Guest Contribution: “TPP Critics’ Nighttime Fears Fade by Light of Day”
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 appeared at Project Syndicate.
How do consumers respond to lower gasoline prices?
U.S. gasoline prices averaged $3.31 a gallon over December 2013 to February 2014 but only $2.31 a gallon over December 2014 to February 2015. How did consumers respond to this windfall in their spending power? A new study by the JP Morgan Chase Institute has come up with some interesting answers.
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Outsourced Monetary Tightening
From Zeng and Wei in the Wall Street Journal today:
Central banks around the world are selling U.S. government bonds at the fastest pace on record, the most dramatic shift in the $12.8 trillion Treasury market since the financial crisis.
Debt, Devaluation, Trade, and More
Those were some of the topics covered at the West Coast Workshop on International Finance and Open Economy Macroeconomics, held last Friday on the beautiful UC-Santa Cruz campus, co-organized by Helen Popper (Santa Clara University), Michael Hutchison (UC Santa Cruz), and Carl Walsh (UC Santa Cruz).