Harvard Professor James Stock and Princeton Professor Mark Watson presented a very interesting paper last week at the Spring 2012 Conference for the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. Their paper studied similarities and differences between the 2007-2009 recession and other U.S. business cycles.
Chinn-Ito Financial Openness Index Updated to 2010
The Chinn-Ito KAOPEN index — a measure of de jure financial openness — has just been updated to 2010 (site here). The results show some slight retrenchment in recent years, particularly in LDCs and emerging markets, as shown in Figure 1.
Assume a Can Opener*
Why do gasoline prices differ across U.S. states?
Gasoline prices differ substantially across different parts of the United States. For example, the average price in Illinois is currently 70 cents/gallon higher than that in Wyoming, and California motorists pay 86 cents/gallon more than the folks in Wyoming. Why is that?
Revisiting the Determinants of the Term Premium
In last Thursday’s post, John Kitchen recounted our joint work on what amount of foreign financing would be required to make consistent projections of government debt, and short and long term interest rates. That article from International Finance is now freely available on the Council on Foreign Relations website here.
“The Eurozone in Crisis: Origins and Prospects”
Time to breathe a sigh of relief, with resolution of the Greek bailout? Not so fast. Greece is likely to need re-adjustments to its plan [0] Plenty of challenges remain in the eurozone; PIMCO’s El-Erian says Portugal is next [1]. In fact, as Jeffry Frieden and I argue, the resolution of the problems facing eurozone policymakers is likely to be contentious and prolonged. From an article forthcoming in the Spring issue of the La Follette Policy Report, by me and Jeffry Frieden (since the article is not yet published, the working paper version is here):
Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the rescue
The United States and Britain have apparently been discussing a joint release of strategic petroleum stockpiles.
Guest Contribution: “Financing U.S. Debt”
In a Guest Contribution today, John Kitchen (U.S. Treasury, formerly Chief Economist, Office of Management and Budget) addresses the issue of “Financing U.S. Debt: Is There Enough Money in the World — and at What Cost?”. The comments are based on a paper recently published in International Finance (Winter 2011), co-authored with Menzie Chinn. The views expressed are the author’s and do not represent the views of the U.S. Treasury.
Links for 2012-03-14
Quick links to a few items I found interesting.
“Scoring” the Romney Economic Plan
Well, this could be a short blogpost, because in Mitt Romney’s words, “frankly it can’t be scored” [The Hill]. However, I think it of interest to consider what it would take to make the Romney plan deficit neutral, as he has argued it would be.