Mark Mandel weighs in on a Mark Thoma critique of a column written by Chris Farrell – but seems to have missed the point of the Farrell-Thoma debate. Farrell and Thoma were discussing the role of monetary policy and the business cycle. As Mandel accuses Thoma of missing the point, he changes the discussion to […]

One more thought about today’s FOMC statement: at a certain point, one starts to wonder why the FOMC can’t just use plain English when trying to convey its intentions. Currently, economists and financial market participants spend considerable time and energy trying to interpret exactly what the FOMC is signaling with its statements. So why can’t […]

The FOMC just released its statement announcing that it has decided to increase the Federal Funds rate yet again by 0.25%, to 3.25%. This was expected. The only point of uncertainty was exactly what signal the Fed would send the market about future rate hikes. Would they suggest that this period of interest rate increases […]

In the wake of last week’s bid for Unocal by the Chinese oil firm CNOOC, the press has been full of stories about China’s newly emerging economic might. That economic power is real, and without a doubt will gradually change the way the world looks over the coming decades. From the US’s point of view, […]

The following chart shows household real income for the tenth and twentieth percentiles per the data in table A3 of the Census Bureau’s Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2003 (issued August 2004). Donald Luskin’s STILL MOVIN’ ON UP is supposed to appear in the National Review print edition on July […]

James Hamilton…where have I heard that name before? Oh yes, grad school. He wrote the book on time series econometrics, literally. And now he has a blog. Also, Mark Thoma (Economist’s View) has moved his blog to typepad, update your bookmarks. AB

Following up on yesterday’s post about the capital flow puzzle, I thought I’d examine savings and consumption patterns more closely, since differences in savings behavior are (as I argued) the crucial determinants of the odd pattern that we currently see wherein poor countries are lending vast sums of money to the wealthy United States. The […]

While this story covers the $3100 increase in Congressional pay, let’s go to the end of the article: “It’s not a pay raise,” said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. “It’s an adjustment so that they’re not losing their purchasing power.” The Congressman is exactly right as the percentage increase in nominal pay is less […]

I think I have to disagree with Brad DeLong’s assessment of Glenn Hubbard’s WSJ op-ed from the other day. Brad suggests that Hubbard may indeed have identified an important piece of the puzzle – the puzzle being why poor Asian economies are lending so much money to the United States. Hubbard’s point boils down to […]

Michael Hoffman forwarded to us an interesting short paper showing the lack of an empirical relationship between the exchange rate and the current account. He summarizes the underlying theoretical construct as two conventional claims: (1) A cheap (depreciated) dollar causes the current account deficit to shrink.(2) A current account deficit causes the dollar to depreciate. […]