How speculation may be contributing to the most recent moves in oil prices.
Making fuel out of air and sunshine
Plants do it. Why not you?
High Frequency GDP Estimates
From Macroeconomic Advisers, May 14:
Monthly GDP Index: March 2008
Monthly GDP rose 0.3% in March. This followed a 1.0% decline in February that was revised up from a 1.2% decline in last month’s report. The moderate increase in monthly GDP in March can largely be accounted for by positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures and domestic spending on capital goods. A large positive contribution from net exports was essentially offset by a large negative contribution from inventory investment. The level of monthly GDP in March was 0.5% below the first-quarter average at an annual rate. Our latest tracking forecast of 2.6% growth of GDP in Q2 assumes average monthly increases of 0.4% per month from April to June.
Musing on Seasonal Adjustment and the CPI
The latest CPI release provided some much needed relief on the inflation front. What caught my eye was some of the discussion regarding the seasonal adjustment. This inspired me to wonder what seasonal adjustment was doing.
Baby you can fly my car
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.