Facebook founder and his wife have decided to give away 99% of their fortune. That is $ 45 billion. Now, I know many will heap praise upon them for their generosity. Same deal when the Gates and Buffet did their give away announcement. But, I’m not so keen on this. I know, how heartless of me. […]
An alterative title might be my usual comment reminding Krugman’s readers of the history of “hysterisis”. Krugman wrote a very clear even better than usual post summarizing how his views on macroeconomics have changed since 2008. It is best to click the link, but the one sentence summary is that he wasn’t surprised by the […]
by New Deal democrat (Bondadd blog) One long term indicator changes to Yellow One long leading indicator has turned from green (positive) to yellow (caution): mortgage rates. Since middle class wages peaked in the 1970s, the ability to refinance debt at lower interest rates has been an important coping mechanism. Particularly since the 1980s, […]
by Joseph Joyce Dilemmas, Trilemmas and Difficult Choices In 2013 Hélène Rey of the London Business School presented a paper at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual policy symposium. Her address dealt with the policy choices available to a central bank in an open economy, which she claimed are more limited than […]
The following graph shows a pattern of productivity growth through a business cycle. The graph plots my UT index against Year over Year % change in productivity for the past 41 years. (Link to FRED data for graph, 1974 to present) The UT index is a measurement of effective demand. It measures the difference between effective […]
I received this *.pdf and an invitation to read it from my colleague and sometimes co-author Alessandra Pelloni. I had a lot of thoughts which I post here as they can’t do any harm. Two comments before the jump and 5 after the jump. I think it will be hard to massage the data away […]
Oscar Landerretche is an awesome economist from Chile. Below is an excerpt of his participation in a video forum with Brad DeLong on the Politics of Inequality in 2012. Since then he has become the President of the Board of Directors for Codelco, the largest copper producer in Chile. He is currently dealing with the […]
One has to be crazy to disagree with Brad DeLong. Then, I must be crazy. He said… “After being wrong for eight straight years, critics of expansionary macro policies in a high-slack low-inflation economy–” Link It is true that if we look across America, we will see lots of slack and underemployment. Labor force participation […]
In a recent post Tyler Cowen makes an admirable effort to lay out his overarching approach to thinking about macroeconomics, revealing the assumptions underlying his understanding of how economies work. (Even more salutary, this has prompted others to do likewise: Nick Rowe, Ryan Avent.) Cowen’s first assertion: In world history, 99% of all business cycles are real […]
This is a comment on an article that came out yesterday called The equilibrium real funds rate: Past, present and future by James D. Hamilton, Ethan Harris, Jan Hatzius and Kenneth D. West. They talk about how difficult it is to determine an equilibrium real interest rate which is the real rate at full employment […]