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. ).
by New Deal democrat The implications of the child care cost crush for median household income and “shadow unemployment” The other day I showed that there is compelling evidence that the primary reason for the long term decline in the Labor Force Participation Rate in the 25 – 54 age range is the increasing real […]
The recent stock market fall appears to be in reaction to weakness in foreign economies, not domestic developments in the US. One measure to watch is world trade. from December to May world trade volume fell -3.4%. Interestingly, in the first five months of the 1971 decline trade fell -3.5%, essentially the same […]
Last week I made a presentation to the Colorado Assessors Association on tax increment financing (TIF) subsidies. With the organization’s permission, I am sharing the PowerPoint presentation for my talk, as well as adding this introduction. The talk begins by putting TIF in the context of subsidies generally. As a subsidy, TIF is subject to […]
by New Deal democrat Do rising child care costs & stagnant wages explain the decline in the Labor Force Participation Rate ? What is driving the long term decline, shown in the graph below, in the labor force participation rate (LFPR) among prime working age adults, ages 25-54? A couple of weeks ago I wrote […]
by Joseph Joyce Greece’s Missing Drivers of Growth Analyses and discussions of Greece’s economic situation usually begin—and often end—with its fiscal policy. The policies mandated by the “troika” of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have undoubtedly resulted in a severe contraction that will continue for at least this […]