With domestic oil production soaring, and petroleum and coal sector profits rising at a rapid clip, now seems the right time to cut back on tax expenditures related to oil extraction and processing.
Bernanke on long-term interest rates
On Friday I attended a conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which included a very interesting presentation by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on long-term interest rates.
What If People Lived Forever . . .
In a New Keynesian DSGE (or a RBC)
Approximate Geographic Impact of the Sequester
From Wells Fargo (using Pew Center data), a graphic depicting exposure to Federal spending, and hence sensitivity to the sequester.
Yen Depreciation and the Scope for Expenditure Switching
With Haruhiko Kuroda ascending to head the Bank of Japan [1], it is likely that monetary policy will remain fairly expansionary. Even without direct intervention in foreign exchange markets, the yen will likely continue to weaken as expectations of inflation rise. What is the likely impact of trade flows?
The Dorian Gray pill
On Friday I attended the U.S. Monetary Policy Forum in New York City. I will be posting some material about the paper I presented at the conference later this week. But today I wanted to mention an interesting talk at the conference by Harvard Professor Greg Mankiw on health care costs.
Multipliers When Last the Zero Lower Bound … Bound
Empirical evidence on Inter-war multipliers
Minimum wage and unemployment
With the recent proposal to raise the minimum wage, I noticed that California currently has one of the highest minimum wages ($8.00/hour) and one of the highest unemployment rates (9.8%) in the country.
Macroeconomic Advisers on the Sequester’s Impact
Estimated self-inflicted macro harm, from Macroeconomic Advisers today: