Today Econbrowser hosts this guest contribution from Robert Pollin and Michael Ash of the Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Guest Contribution: “Fairness and Sustainability for Cyprus”
Today, we have a guest contribution from Marios Zachariadis, Associate Professor of Economics at University of Cyprus.
Reinhart-Rogoff data problems
The methods and conclusions of an influential paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff published in 2010 have recently been challenged by Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash, and Robert Pollin. Here I comment on both the details and broader significance of the dispute.
Wisconsin in March: Nonfarm payroll employment declines
Private nonfarm payroll employment growth near zero, and the level is about 70 thousand below the path implied by Governor Walker’s commitment to increase private sector employment by 250 thousand by 2015M01.
No Time for Austerity: US Edition
With unemployment at 7.6% and an output gap of around 6%, it’s (still) not the time to embark on front-loaded spending cuts in the United States.
“The Great Divergence of Policies”
From Box 1.1 (by M. Ayhan Kose, Prakash Loungani,
and Marco E. Terrones) in the newly released World Economic Outlook:
Gold Prices Falling
Was their rise caused by “bad policies”? And why are they falling now?
“Rethinking Macro Policy II: First Steps and Early Lessons”
That’s the title of an IMF conference taking place starting tomorrow (April 16-17). The program is below, and the live webcast will be available here (and follows up on a 2011 conference on the same subject).
Five years into the crisis, the contours of the macroeconomic policy of the future are only slowly coming into focus. From macroeconomic to financial stability, policy makers have realized that they have to watch many targets. They have also realized that they have potentially many more instruments at their disposal, from macro prudential tools to unconventional monetary policy. But how to map instruments to targets remains very much a work in progress. — Olivier Blanchard
Growing student debt
I was curious to take a look at the growing student debt load and the government’s exposure to potential repayment issues.
Some New Estimates of Japanese Trade Elasticities
One component of Abenomics is a vigorously expansionary monetary policy. The yen has depreciated substantially as a consequence — as of February, about 20% relative to 2012Q3. One question is how much of an expenditure switching effect this depreciation will induce. In order to examine this question, I have done some quick and dirty econometrics, summarized in this paper.