Friday, June 01, 2018

The percentage of 25-54 year-olds employed was unchanged in May

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One weakness of the unemployment rate is that if people drop out of the labor force they cannot be counted as an unemployed person and the ...
Thursday, May 31, 2018

India sets a price floor for sugar and gets a surplus

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See India, Buried in Sugar, Tries to Dig Out: Government price controls have created an unsustainable glut, with 13 million tons stockpile...
Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Higher U.S. interest rates recently helped fuel a surprise rally in the dollar

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See U.S. Government Bonds Pay More Than Debt From Other Developed Nations: Higher yields reflect investors’ struggle to reconcile expectati...
Monday, May 28, 2018

Comparative Advantage

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Yesterday I posted a link to the new PBS series "First Civilizations" which had an interesting episode on trade. Last year was the...
Sunday, May 27, 2018

New PBS Series "First Civilizations" Has Interesting Episode On Trade

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Here is a summary of the episode. "Examine an ancient civilization unlike any other, that of the Indus Valley. Rather than imposing ...
Saturday, May 26, 2018

Is The Phillips Curve Dead In Japan? Maybe not

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See In Booming Japan, the Phillips Curve Is Dead: Unemployment is down but inflation isn’t budging. Why companies resist raising prices by ...
Thursday, May 24, 2018

Is The Phillips Curve Not Holding Up Well Beacuse The Service And Goods Sectors Are Behaving Differently?

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Split in Goods and Services Inflation Underscores Fed’s Challenge: Conventional theory on the link between unemployment and prices holds up ...
Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Has the Fed Flattened the Phillips Curve?

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See How the Unfettered Fed Flattened the Phillips Curve: Insulating the central bank from politics made it possible to keep inflation and u...
Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Supply Means Producing A Good And Customers Being Able To Purchase It

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When I teach the shift factors for supply and demand, one is expectation of future price. If buyers expect a significant increase in price i...
Sunday, May 20, 2018

A number of women who put off having babies after the 2007-09 recession are forgoing them altogether; more educated women and student debt also contribute to decline in birth rates

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See U.S. Births Hit Lowest Number Since 1987: Last year’s fertility-rate drop was the largest one-year decline since 2010 by Janet Adamy o...
Thursday, May 17, 2018

Has An Increase In Supply Reduced The Economic Value Of Recycling?

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See Recycling, Once Embraced by Businesses and Environmentalists, Now Under Siege: Local officials raise fees and send recyclables to landf...
Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Have Performers Found A Way To Beat Ticket Scalpers?

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It seems like it has been going on for a long time. Pop stars put tickets on sale and a concert is sold out quickly. But many of the the tic...
Tuesday, May 15, 2018

How Central Banks Differ In Their Methods Of Calculating Inflation

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My last two posts covered the uncertainty about the natural rate of unemployment. That is the lowest rate of unemployment compatible with pr...
Monday, May 14, 2018

More on the natural rate of unemployment

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The WSJ printed a letter about the article I linked in the previous post and then had a related article. See Was the Phillips Curve Ever a R...
Saturday, May 12, 2018

Nobody knows what the natural rate of unemployment is today

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See Is the Phillips Curve Dead? And Other Questions for the Fed: Before adjusting interest rates again this year, the central bank should fo...