Or, are there nonlinearities in the real (macro) world?
Fiscal stimulus
My colleague UCSD Professor Valerie Ramey has an interesting new paper looking at the effects of higher government spending on GDP.
BLS: Wisconsin Private and Total Nonfarm Payroll Employment Decline in April
Official figures indicate employment declines in April, according to the BLS. Private payrolls are 4700 below January 2011 Levels
Ignorance Is Strength: House of Representatives Edition
The War on Data Collection Continues!
From the National Association for Business Economics (NABE):
[t]he U.S. House of Representatives was considering an
appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (H.R. 5326) that would drastically reduce funding for the Census Bureau and make participation in the American Community Survey voluntary.
Governor Walker’s Revised Employment Data in Context
(Updated at 5/17 12 noon Pacific: Wisconsin DWD reports April Loss of 5.9K NFP Jobs (6.2K Private); March NFP numbers revised up 7.3K, private payroll numbers revised up 0.7K. Total civilian employment rises by 6.8K according to household survey. Complete information at bottom of post).
Today, the Wisconsin DWD took the unusual — one might say unprecedented [1] [2] — step of announcing their estimates of what they call “actual job numbers” (see press release here). These are based on the unemployment insurance covered employment. From the press release:
Oil and gasoline prices
Here I comment on some recent developments affecting oil and gasoline prices.
The housing market and the case for higher inflation targets
From a VoxEU column today, by me and Joshua Aizenman:
Might more inflation be good for the US and Europe? This column looks at the housing market in the US and argues that, with houses dropping in price, buyers are playing a waiting game. And as buyers keep delaying, the price drops further. Given the importance of property in many economies, the knock-on effects are severe. Yet one way to break this vicious cycle is with inflation.
Gasoline Prices Implied by Futures
Downward, and downwardly revised.
JP Morgan and systemic risk
For some time, financial observers have been discussing the large positions in bond-index derivatives amassed by a trader known as the London Whale, now revealed to be Bruno Iksil working for JP Morgan Chase.
On Thursday we learned that JP Morgan has lost over $2 billion in the space of two weeks as a result of the trades. On Friday the stock price fell by 9.3%, wiping out $14.4 billion of the company’s value.
Dispatches (XXI): Governor Walker only 244,100 Short of 250,000 New Private Sector Jobs by 2015!
From Milwaukee Journal Sentinel All Politics Blog:
Gov. Scott Walker recommitted Saturday to his pledge to create 250,000 private-sector jobs by 2015, a promise all the more difficult to achieve since he first made it because of anemic job growth during his tenure.