Guest Contribution: US Federal Regulatory Budget and Macroeconomic Outcomes: What Do We Know?

By Tara M. Sinclair

Today, we’re fortunate to have Tara M. Sinclair, Associate Professor of Economics and International Affairs and a scholar at the GW Regulatory Studies Center at The George Washington University, as a Guest Contributor.

There has been a lot of debate lately about the costs of regulation for the US economy. In a Regulatory Policy Commentary posted on December 19th, Kathryn Vesey, a research associate at the GW Regulatory Studies Center, and I discuss our preliminary findings from a study of the macroeconomic impacts of changes in the “regulators’ budget,” i.e. the part of the US federal government budget allocated to developing and enforcing federal regulations.

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Dispatches (XVII): “Things are continually and gradually moving in the right direction”

That’s the concluding line from the release issued by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development’s Secretary Reginald Newson. The preceding sentence is “The job numbers are a lagging indicator for economic conditions, and we will continue to move forward.” Here are two graphs, with updated DWD data incorporating revisions, and preliminary data for November, that place those comments in context.

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“Are Chinese Trade Flows Different?”

The answer is no, and yes.

From the paper by that title, coauthored with Yin-Wong Cheung (UCSC, CUHK) and Xingwang Qian (SUNY Buffalo State). (This is a revision of the paper discussed here.)
For the “no” part:

We find that Chinese trade flows respond to economic activity and relative prices — as
represented by a trade weighted exchange rate — but the relationships are not always precisely or
robustly estimated. Chinese exports are generally well-behaved, rising with foreign GDP and
decreasing as the Chinese renminbi (RMB) appreciates….

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Supply Chains and the Future of Globalization in the Wake of the Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami

I was sitting in a briefing recently, where I heard how US GDP would be measurably affected by the floods in Thailand –- specifically through the shutdown of production of key auto parts. [0] That reminded me of the supply-chain-propagated impact of events nine months earlier, following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Here’s the trade-related part of the assessment from my colleague Isao Kamata’s article in the La Follette Policy Report, “The Great East Japan Earthquake: A View on Its Implication for Japan’s Economy”:

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