Last week’s data suggest that the U.S. economic recovery is continuing to gain some strength.
Messages from the January Employment Release: Accelerating Improvement for Now
Employment growth accelerates along several dimensions: nonfarm payroll, an alternative measure of nonfarm payroll, private employment, hours, and civilian employment (report here). However, JEC vice chairman Brady (JEC-Republicans) states in a press release: “Job Numbers Mask Underlying Job Weakness.”
Net Exports, Exports, Real Exchange Rates and Manufacturing
Several observers have noted that exports have increased substantially since the President made his commitment to doubling exports. [1] The most recent GDP release confirms improvement in the net exports to GDP ratio (ex. oil imports) and real exports, and a BEA release from a month and a half ago confirms a rebound in manufacturing value added.
Links for 2012-02-01
Quick links to a few items I found interesting.
CBO’s Budget and Economic Outlook: Tax Expenditures
The CBO has just released the Budget and Economic Outlook. The document is full of extremely useful information, and provides a useful anodyne for some of the reality-free analyses floating around (examples here). For now, I’ll just highlight two interesting graphs regarding tax expenditures:
Inflation expectations and the Fed
The Fed has begun implementing its new communication strategy. Here’s what the message seems to be.
Wisconsin Governor Walker: “We are heading in the right direction.”
That statement is from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s State of the State address. Here are some additional remarks:
U.S. GDP: not a recession, but still not very encouraging
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported today that U.S. real GDP grew at an annual rate of 2.8% during the fourth quarter of 2011. That’s better than any of the previous 5 quarters, which tells you more about how disappointing the previous year and a half has been than it does about how great the fourth quarter was. The average historical growth rate for the U.S. economy over the last 60 years has been about 3.2%.
UK: Into Recession
So much for expansionary fiscal contraction in the UK. Not that that’s a surprise.
In Search Of: Fiscal Responsibility
Given all the talk about taxes, I wondered how the Republican candidates plans stack up on the fiscal responsibility dimension, which Jeffry Frieden and I define thus:
[T]rue fiscal responsibility involves a willingness to raise sufficient tax revenue, over the longer term, to pay for the programs the government implements. Fiscal responsibility should not be equated with a small government, but rather with a commitment to pay for the government services provided. …