Guest Contribution: “Nowcasting Global GDP Growth”

Today, we are fortunate to present a guest contribution written by Laurent Ferrara (Banque de France, Head of the International Macro Division) and Clément Marsilli (Banque de France, Economist at the International Macro Division). The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this article are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the Banque de France.


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Is the United States Protected from the European Debt Crisis?

For those of you in San Diego I wanted to call attention to a roundtable discussion this Friday March 6 on some of the ongoing concerns about European sovereign debt. I’ll be appearing along with Jeffrey Frieden from Harvard (who will be quite familiar to regular readers of Econbrowser) and David Leblang of the University of Virginia. Details on how to register for the event can be found here.

What is the new normal for the real interest rate?

The yield on a 10-year Treasury inflation protected security was negative through much of 2012 and 2013, and remains today below 0.25%. Have we entered a new era in which a real rate near zero is the new normal? That’s the subject of a new paper that I just completed with Ethan Harris, head of global economics research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Jan Hatzius chief economist of Goldman Sachs, and Kenneth West professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin, which we presented at the U.S. Monetary Policy Forum annual conference in New York on Friday.
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