The IMF staff has now determined the Renminbi should be included in the IMF’s unit of account, the Special Drawing Right (SDR). Reviews of the decision are covered here and here. But as the articles note, there is a long ways to go before the RMB is internationalized so as to rival the dollar or euro.
A Year for Records: Temperatures, Acres Burned
Read on, only if you believe in considering data.
Commodity prices and exchange rates
The dramatic decline in the prices of a number of commodities over the last 16 months must have a common factor. One variable that seems to be quite important is the exchange rate.
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Guest Contribution: “Games Countries Play”
Today we 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. This post is an extended version of a column that appeared in Project Syndicate.
Links: Housing Bubbles, Trilemma, Policy Timing Uncertainty
Food for thought over the long weekend.
Trends in oil production
World field production of crude oil increased 2.9 million barrels a day in the 12 months ended last July. That compares with a 3.6 mb/d increase over the entire nine years from Jan 2005 to Dec 2013.
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Wisconsin Private Employment: “highest one-month jump since 1992”
That’s the headline on this afternoon’s release from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. While completely accurate, the summary leaves a just a little context out…
Closing the Output Gap
…very slowly
The Wisconsin Economy since the Last Peak
Compared against Minnesota, Kansas, California, and the Nation
Potential GDP, Again
There are various ways of estimating potential output. I typically refer to the CBO’s estimates, which are basically a production function approach (use trend labor and capital stock, and total factor productivity growth, to infer potential output). However, An alternative is to examine price pressures to infer potential output, as in Ball and Mankiw (JEP, 2002).