What do you do when one line of the latest government statistical release says that U.S. employment grew by 92,000 jobs during October, while 4 paragraphs later the same report gives the number at 437,000?
The October Employment Report: Dunking the Data in Some Cold Water
There has been much hullaballoo about how tight the labor market is given the upward revisions in the August and September figures, on top of the preliminary benchmark revision reported last month.
Federal Reserve policy and mortgage rates
I’ve recently completed writing a research paper titled Daily Monetary Policy Shocks and the Delayed Response of New Home Sales. The paper develops some new measures of the delay between changes in Fed policy and the impact on the economy. In this, the second of three posts on the paper, I describe the paper’s findings about how the Federal Reserve affects mortgage lending rates.
Estimating U.S.-China Trade Elasticities: Some Very Preliminary Results
Do we have any idea what the CNY appreciation against the dollar will accomplish?
Accuracy of futures prices as predictors of the fed funds rate
I’m just finishing writing a new research paper whose goal is to come up with a better measure and understanding of the lagged effect of monetary policy on the economy. One of my claims is that the public’s expectations of what the Fed is going to do next play a key role in that process. In this, the first of several posts based on that paper, I describe some of the properties I’ve found for fed funds futures prices as predictors of subsequent Fed policy changes.
“Trends in Iraq” – Updated
This figure updates the data presented in an earlier post on Iraq trends, replacing the projection with actual figures for October.
Skepticism about the Business Fixed Investment Handoff
One view of how GDP growth can be sustained in the wake of negative residential investment growth is to assert that business fixed investment picks up the slack. If this happens, then the adjustment of construction employment need not be too abrupt.
Interpreting median house prices
“Home Prices Plunge by Most in 35 Years”,
declare the headlines. But those numbers don’t mean what you might think.
Third quarter growth slows to a crawl
As expected, GDP growth became even weaker in 2006:Q3.
More evidence that housing may be stabilizing
Data on new home sales and inventories released today from the Census Bureau continue to support the view that the market downturn may have reached its bottom.