Both bulls and bears are examining wage growth for signs of incipient inflationary pressures. The current debate seems to assume that wages are completely determined by how much slack there is in the labor market and overall economy. Both conservatives and liberals seem to believe that if employment fall below current levels that wage growth […]
Via Diane Ravictch and Dailykos comes this video from last year. Mary Poppins Quits with Kristen Bell from Funny Or Die
Effective Demand is basically a demand limit upon the business cycle. Wouldn’t it be great if it could be determined? Then we would know where the limit of a business cycles is. Well maybe we can determine effective demand. A simple equation for the Effective Demand Limit relates labor share to the utilization of labor […]
by Sandwichman The Confederate Ideology: “At this cost the system is maintained.”
by Joseph Joyce Global Volatility, Domestic Markets Unlike the global financial crisis of 2008-09, the current disruption in the financial markets of emerging market nations was anticipated. The “taper tantrum” of 2013 revealed the precarious position of many of these nations, particularly those dependent on commodity exports. The combination of a slowdown in Chinese growth, […]
Brad DeLong Friday morning: I cannot help but note strong divergence between the near-consensus views of Fed Chair Janet [Yellen]’s and Fed Vice-Chair Stan [Fischer]’s still-academic colleagues and students that tightening now is grossly premature, financial markets’ agreement with the hippies as evidenced by the ten-year breakeven, commercial-banker and wingnut demands for immediate tightening, the […]
Recently a very old debate among macroeconomists has been reopened (this happens from time to time). Paul Romer decided to discuss a key conference held in 1978 (yes really). Some (including me) think that’s about when the profession took a wrong turn largely following Robert Lucas. But in the discussion until about yesterday, it was […]
In my last post I pointed out that over the last half century, every time the year-over-year change in Real Household Net Worth went negative (real household wealth decreased), a recession had either started, or was about to. (One bare exception: a tiny decline in Q4 2011, which looks rather like turbulence following The Big Whatever.) […]
I have a new post up that has implications for stock-market investment, so I decided to try posting it over at Seeking Alpha, where they’re paying me a few tens of dollars for the post (plus more based on page views — not much luck so far). The post argues that year-over-year change in Real […]
People who know more than I do are discussing the rational expectations revolution and the division of macroeconomics into hostile fresh-water and salt-water schools of thought. I am very favorably impressed by this post by Simon Wren-Lewis which you should probably just read. ).