I have been suggesting that the best statistical approach, when confronted with conflicting signals such as the employment estimates from the BLS payroll survey, the separate BLS household survey, or the huge database from the private company Automatic Data Processing, is not to selectively throw some of the data out but rather to combine the different measures. Judging from some of the comments this suggestion has received both
Employment still holding up (I think)
Another week of some wildly contradictory employment indicators.
President Bush on Economics
On Wednesday, the President writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed (sub. req.):
December auto sales
Auto sales data released today look just great, as long as your name is Toyota.
Fiesta Bowl
Could be the greatest game in the history of college football, says Matt Zemek.
Low Real Rates Disappear…but the Deficit Remains
I’ve been looking at real long term interest rates as proxied by nominal rates minus expected inflation. The problem of course is finding measures of expected inflation. Subtracting off the ex post rate (appropriate under the rational expectations hypothesis) can lead to misleading inferences — and is not practicable for current measures of long term rates. Using ten year constant maturity rates and the Society of Professional Forecasters 10 year horizon CPI inflation rates yields the following picture.
What will the Fed do next?
Probably nothing.
WIN buttons and Arthur Burns
I normally find myself agreeing with Dave Altig’s high-quality analysis over at Macroblog. But I’m afraid I have to leave Dave all alone in his latest quixotic mission to defend Arthur Burns (Chair of the Federal Reserve during the great inflationary episode from 1970 to 1978) and Gerald Ford’s old WIN buttons.
Is Decoupling Possible?
The dream rebalancing scenario, in which adjustment of the world’s imbalances occurs without fiscal responsibility returning to America, relies upon “decoupling”.
Encouraging numbers for new home sales
The Census Bureau today reported that new home sales were 3.4% higher in November relative to October, on a seasonally adjusted basis.