In our book Lost Decades, Jeffry Frieden and I tried to be as comprehensive as possible in documenting the history we described, the analytical results we reported, and the data we used. We had intended to rely to a greater degree on graphical depictions, but for a variety of reasons, not all the proposed graphs made it in. Hence, we present the graphs that didn’t make it into Lost Decades. (And, by virtue of the just-in-time nature of the web, updated!). The graphs are organized by chapters:
The Trillion Dollar War of Choice, and the Constraints on Macro Policy
Or at least $805.6 billion as of the end of September, not including debt service and additional reset costs; around $940 billion including interest payments.
As the US economy faces the prospects of stagnant growth or recession, it is of interest to see why the scope for fiscal policy is so circumscribed — that is why is the debt level so high given that in the last year of the Clinton Administration, we were paying down debt? Figure 1 depicts part of the answer (other parts, here).
“What Predicts a Credit Boom Bust?”
From Chapter 1 of the IMF’s recent World Economic Outlook (Box 1.2), a set of findings by Jörg Decressin and Marco Terrones:
The econometric results confirm that net capital inflows, financial sector reform, and total factor productivity are good predictors of a credit boom. Net capital inflows appear to have an important predictive edge over the other two factors.
Effects of operation twist
Changing behavior of crude oil futures prices
I’ve just finished a new research paper with my former student (and now University of Chicago Professor) Cynthia Wu. In our new paper, we study how increased purchases of crude oil futures contracts by financial investors may have affected the prices on those contracts.
More thoughts on peak oil
In Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, gave his explanation of what’s wrong with peak oil. Here’s why I don’t find his analysis altogether convincing.
Lost Decades: The Making of America’s Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery
From the preface to Lost Decades, published today (9/19) by W.W. Norton:
The United States … lost the first decade of the
twenty-first century to an ill-conceived boom and a subsequent bust.
It is in danger of losing another decade to an incomplete recovery
and economic stagnation.
In order to not lose the decade to come, the United States will
have to bring order to financial disarray, gain control of a burgeoning
burden of debt, and re-create the conditions for sound economic
growth and social progress. None of this will be easy. The tasks are
made more difficult by the fact, which we have learned to our alarm,
that all too many policymakers and observers cling to the failed
notions that got the country into such trouble in the first place. If
Americans do not learn from this painful episode, and from others
like it, they will condemn the nation to another lost decade.. (p. xvi).
Guest Contribution: “Europe’s Lehman Moment”
Today, we’re fortunate to have a guest contribution by Jeffry Frieden, Stanfield Professor of International Peace at Harvard University, and coauthor of Lost Decades: The Making of America’s Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery. This article first appeared on Reuter’s Opinion.
Europe’s Lehman Moment
By Jeffry Frieden
Europe is in the midst of its variant of the great debt crisis that hit the United States in 2008. Fears abound that if things go wrong, the continent will face its own “Lehman moment” — a recurrence of the sheer panic that hit American and world markets after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in October 2008. How did Europe arrive at this dire strait? What are its options? What is likely to happen?
The Wrong Track, in Figures
Mike Rosenberg (Bloomberg) notes that, when viewing the policy mix from the perspective of fiscal and financial conditions, we are on the following path, even as there is a large amount of slack in the economy [0]:
The Fall 2011 World Economic Outlook
The analytic chapters were released yesterday.