CBO’s Assessment of ARRA’s Impact on Q3 Output and Employment

From CBO’s just released Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output as of September 2009
:

…Economic
output and employment in the spring and summer
of 2009 were lower than CBO had projected at the
beginning of the year. But in CBO’s judgment, that
outcome reflects greater-than-projected weakness in the
underlying economy rather than lower-than-expected
effects of ARRA.

In other words, the continued deterioration of the economy through the first few months after the passage of ARRA was not due to the stimulus package; rather underlying conditions had deteriorated, and the economy would have been in a worse state in the absence of the package. This is similar to the points I made here: [0] [1] [2]

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From VoxEU: The Great Trade Collapse

Causes, Consequences and Prospects, edited by Richard Baldwin

From Baldwin’s introductory chapter:

World trade experienced a sudden, severe and synchronised collapse in late 2008 — the
sharpest in recorded history and deepest since WWII. This Ebook — written for the world’s
trade ministers gathering for the WTO’s Trade Ministerial in Geneva — presents the economics profession’s received wisdom on the collapse….

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Blogonomics: Some Random Thoughts

Back in late October, I was invited to a Bank of Canada workshop (organized by Brigitte Desroches and James Rossiter), entitled “Understanding economic outcomes in uncertain times”. I was flattered (and a little surprised) to be asked to participate in a panel discussion on “blogonomics”, chaired by David Wolf of the Bank of Canada. On the panel were esteemed fellow bloggers David Altig of Macroblog and Stephen Gordon of Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.

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