Via West Virginia Rebel, the Telegraph reports:
Credit crunch: how we got here and how to get out
Fed Chair Ben Bernanke on Tuesday offered his perspective on the appropriate response of the Fed to the ongoing turmoil in financial markets. I still think he’s overlooking a key element of what’s been happening.
Net Exports, Oil Imports, and Implications for GDP
The March trade release was taken as good news. Here’s some reasons to wonder a bit more about how good the news was.
What if we’d been on the gold standard?
If the U.S. had decided to go back on the gold standard in 2006, where would we be today? That’s a question my friend Randy Parker recently asked me. Here’s how we both would answer.
Lazear Sees No Recession for U.S. Economy
From WSJ, Henry Pulizzi and John D. McKinnon write:
Current Account Balances, Again
Two years ago, as part of a multi-year project, Charles Engel and I organized a conference on current account sustainability in major advanced economies.
Lask week, we convened a follow-up conference aimed at updating our knowledge on this subject. Below is the latest read on the U.S. current account to GDP.
Gasoline prices: consumers and politicians respond
The trend is clear: demand is down and complaints are up.
Updated Chinn-Ito Financial Openness Index Online
The newest version of the Chinn-Ito financial openness index (earlier discussed here), extending up to 2006, has just been posted. Here’s the series for Argentina and for Venezuela.
A Memo I’d Love to See: Whales and Economics
From the Washington Post:
White House officials for more than a year have blocked a rule aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales by challenging the findings of government scientists, according to documents obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Macroeconomics and ARCH
That’s the topic of my most recent research paper. Reader warning: this is a bit more technical than the standard Econbrowser post, so if you’re not a user of regression analysis, this may not be up your alley.