Wisconsin’s State of the State

Governor Walker delivered his State of the State address tonight (video here). From the press release:

“Tonight, we are laying out a plan to move Wisconsin further down the road to prosperity,” Governor Walker said. “Our friends and neighbors are going back to work and job creators are expanding their businesses. Thanks to sound fiscal management, I am proud to announce further tax relief for Wisconsinites and additional funding for worker training. We will continue to work diligently until everyone who wants a job can find a job.”

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Friday Fiscal Lookback

I’m writing a piece on recent thinking on fiscal policy efficacy, and in looking back at the debate over the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, I read this choice comment from an Econbrowser reader in September 2009:

After today’s unemployment report, and in light of your past running blog fight with Posner, I’m thinking that Q3 GDP is going to come in much, much less than you would have predicted based on stimulus spending. You won’t take this as a repudiation of your multiplier theories, but I will.

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So Much for International Monetary Cooperation

From Ted Truman (former director of Int’l Finance at the Fed, former Ass’t Sec. Treasury), at Peterson Institute’s Real Time Economic Issues Watch, yesterday:

The impending congressional adoption this week of a $1.1 trillion appropriations bill has been hailed far and wide as a victory for sorely needed bipartisanship cooperation in Washington. Left out of the legislation, however, was an important but little understood and underappreciated proposal to implement reform at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). …

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Guest Contribution: “Understanding the Potential Effects of QE on Gross Financial Flows to Developing Countries”

Today we are fortunate to have a guest contribution written by Jamus Jerome Lim (World Bank), Sanket Mohapatra (World Bank), and Marc Stocker (World Bank). The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this article are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent.

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Per Capita Income: Wisconsin vs. Minnesota

From Davey, “Twinned Cities Now Following Different Paths,” NY Times today:

“It’s staggering, really, like night and day,” said Lawrence R. Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota. “You’ve got two states with the same history, the same culture, the same people — it’s kind of like they’re cousins. And now they’re looking across the border and seeing one world, then seeing something else entirely on the other side.”

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European monetary policy and the yield curve

From the Economist last week:

Since the financial crisis the European Central Bank (ECB) has ploughed a solitary course, reflecting its unique status as a monetary authority without a state. While other big central banks, notably America’s Federal Reserve, adopted quantitative easing– buying government bonds by creating money– to stimulate recovery, the ECB relied mainly on lowering interest rates and providing unlimited liquidity to banks on longer terms and against worse collateral. But as the Fed phases out its asset-buying programme in 2014, it may be the ECB’s turn to become unorthodox.

By one measure, the ECB may already be there.

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