The impact of interest rates
The US economy may have grown at nearly 3% in the last quarter of 2011, but the Federal Reserve announced last week that they do not expect to raise interest rates until the end of 2014. It has cut its growth forecast for 2012 from 2.5-2.9%, to 2-2.7%, and says that the economy faced “significant downside risks” and that it “expects to maintain a highly accommodative stance for monetary policy” - which I take to mean expansionary.
This article about that interest rate decision is useful for economics teachers and students as it highlights a couple of results of that announcement; firstly that the dollar’s exchange rate immediately lost value as the interest rate made the US a less attractive place to keep cash, and secondly that government benefited as the cost of its borrowing in markets for 10 years fell from 2.06% to 1.94%, as traders priced in the lower medium-term interest rate expectations.
Unit 2 Macro: A Jobs Boost for the US Economy
Could 2012 provide stronger news for the US economy and offer President Obama a decisive electoral dividend in the run up to the November Presidential Election?
The recent jobs data in the USA looks more promising for hopes of a significant pick-up in growth and employment all of which will help attempts to control the fiscal deficit. This news report from AlJazeera looks at the latest US unemployment figures. Falling unemployment provides a platform for rising aggregate demand and stronger short term economic growth. And stronger economic activity in the world’s biggest economy is good news for the UK too!
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: Exchange Rate Economics - Where next for the US Dollar?
Is the US dollar going to be knocked off its perch as the only true global currency? Professor Barry Eichengreen, the author of Exhorbitant Privelege argues that there are strong reasons to believe that the US dollars’ position in the world financial system will decline in the years ahead.
The US dollar has been for many years the world’s most powerful currencies but this power seems to be waning as other currencies rise in significance and the US economy struggles to recover from their financial and economic crisis and the fiscal challenge. Eichengreen argues that there will be three truly global currencies going forward - the dollar, the Euro and the remnimbi.
read more...»2011 in Review - The US Economy
2011 for the US economy was a year of slow growth and fears of a double-dip recession, but there were some more positive signs as 2011 came to a close.
Can the world’s biggest economy sustain a more durable upturn in activity during 2012? Keep in mind that this coming year will be dominated by the lead-in to the November Presidential election.
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: America’s hour-glass economy
Here is a revealing three minute video on the challenges facing America’s declining middle class. Falling real incomes, rising living costs, deep structural unemployment problems - moving on up has got harder to do - what are the social effects of this across so many states?
Tour of the US income distribution – “The L Curve”
Everyone knows about the Lorenz Curve but with the OWS events of late I came across the ‘L Curve”.
The red line represents a graph of family income across the population. The height of the curve at any point is the height of a stack of $100 bills equalling that income.
On the scale of the football field graph shown here the bottom 99% of the population measure their incomes in inches. The top 1% measure their incomes as stacks of $100 bills feet or even miles high! The total wealth of the few people in the vertical spike equals the total wealth of the rest of the population combined.
read more...»Who has become the first major company to back the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests in the US?
This will be today’s starter question for my Economics classes- and it’s an interesting one, as whilst this company expounds the ideals of independence and freedom it’s actually owned by one of the world’s largest consumer companies- who swiftly distanced themselves from the announcement
read more...»Unit 4 Macro: USA edges closer to naming China as a “Currency Manipulator”
The U.S came closer to finally calling the Chinese a currency manipulator and retaliating in the new round of protectionism fears. A good summary of the key issues here.
Economics at the Movies - Too Big to Fail
A big thank you to my former student Mike Dawes, who recommends the film of the book ‘Too Big to Fail’. The made-for-TV film has recently been shown on Sky Anytime, where you may have caught it, but if not there are some trailers and extracts available here on HBO’s website, as well as a synopsis.
Mike has also found a YouTube extract of a scene in the movie where US Treasury officials (Hank Paulson, Neel Kashkari, Jim Wilkinson) are deciding how to break the news of the AIG bailout in a press release and, in his words “there is a Scooby-Doo style unravelling of the recession which for 2 minutes is possibly one of the best explanations I have heard. They also neatly explain Credit-Default Swaps which is equally simple and may help those who were struggling to understand it.”
Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book which led to the film is available from Amazon’s US store here.
Apple is richer than the US Government!
Yes- it’s true! Read on to find out more about this incredible statistic.
read more...»What might happen on August 2nd?
Well- it’s the day the United States might go bankrupt! Read on to find out more and for links to some useful resources to aid a class discussion of this fascinating topic.
read more...»Tracking the effects of the recession on GDP
An excellent resource for Unit 2 and Unit 4 macroeconomics. Vishnu Padmanabhan from Timetric has this excellent look at the impact of the recession on real GDP growth in OECD countries. Which countries did best and worst in the recession? It turns out that Australia, Poland, Israel and South Korea were the countries least affected by the crisis and all avoided a full-blown recession - experiencing instead a soft landing. Here is Vishnu’s article. Our own growing selection of Timetric charts can be found by scrolling down to the bottom of this blog entry.
The OECD has just produced their annual review of Going for Growth - a largely supply-side look at policies designed to promote long-term growth in productive potential in the world economy. Details can be found here.
Timetric: Unemployment in the US Economy
One of the most keenly awaited macro statistics in the USA is the monthly data on employment and unemployment. For some time there have been fears that the huge fiscal and monetary policy stimulus programs seem to have been having little effect on the jobless rate.
As we can see from the charts below there are tentative signs that a more durable economic recovery is setting across the Atlantic. The unemployment rate has fallen to a two year low, employment in private sector businesses is expanding and the steep fall in manufacturing employment seems to have come to an end (for now). Getting unemployment down is crucial for Obama with the next Presidential electoral campaign in view. And it is also important for the wider health of the world’s biggest economy.
One of the really striking things about the recent recession and weak recovery has been the dramatic increase in the mean duration of unemployment in the USA compared to previous bouts of cyclical unemployment. My third chart in this blog looks compelling and suggests that it has been really hard for those who have lost their jobs in the wake of the global financial crisis and the subsequent recession to find fresh work. Long-term unemployment is a structural problem in the labour market and it becomes harder to resolve as the length of time spent out of paid work grows month by month.
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House Price Rollercoaster
This is a terrific visualisation of what has happened to US house prices since the late nineteenth century - we ride the rollercoaster based on data from the Case Shiller index.
And if you want the latest Case Shiller data on US house prices - based on the 20 city survey, then click on the Timetric charts below .... hold onto your hats, the Florida property price data in particular looks pretty scary
read more...»Timetric: Unemployment Rates for Selected Countries
In this Timetric chart blog we look at unemployment rates for a selection of country groups - these automatically updated charts will track what is happening to the standardised jobless rates for clusters of countries starting with one that includes the Euro Area, Germany, USA, UK and Japan. The second chart is the unemployment rates in the so-called PIIGS - Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain
read more...»Dambisa Moyo - How the West was Lost
Dambisa Moyo’s talk at the RSA available here focuses on some of the long term structural problems facing Western Economies in general and the USA in particular. She argues that there are three crucial ingredients in economic growth - better capital, the quantity and quality of the workforce plus improvements in productivity
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A virtuous circle of recovery - Paul Krugman
A hat tip to Larry Spence for flagging up this super piece from Paul Krugamn in the New York Times. His focus is on the dynamics of an economic recovery and the risks of fiscal austerity tipping the US back into recession.
“As families have repaired their finances, they have increased their spending; as consumer demand has started to revive, businesses have become more willing to invest; and all this has led to an expanding economy, which further improves families’ financial situation…....... The clear and present danger to recovery, however, comes from politics — specifically, the demand from House Republicans that the government immediately slash spending on infant nutrition, disease control, clean water and more.”
More here on How to Kill a Recovery
read more...»The US-China Trade Deficit
The US trade gap with China hit a record $273.1 billion in 2010 raising fresh fears of a deteriorating trade relationship between the world’s two biggest economies. But a quick look behind the figures suggests that the US economy is enjoying a surge in exports a major stimulus to their recovery hopes.
The raw data is that US goods exported to China totaled $91.9 billion in 2010 while imports from China rose 24 percent to $364.9 billion. In fact that represents a rise in the value of US-China exports in 2010 of more than 31%.
And the true scale of the trade imbalance with China is likely to be much smaller than the conventionally published data suggests.
US GDP compared to other countries
The Economist has a neat graphic looking at how American states compare with other countries in terms of GDP and population.
The US-China power balance, trade and currencies
The BBC produced a nice little graphic this week to go illustrate comparisons between the US and Chinese economies, alongside the talks between President Obama and President Hu Jintao. Relations between the two countries have been strained by issues such as the trade imbalance and China’s growing military might. The figures here give some background to those issues.
read more...»Will we have to live with high unemployment?
Will many advanced economies have to live with a new semi-permanently higher level of unemployment as a consequence of the global financial crisis, economic slump and a period of fiscal austerity?
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Fix the Budget - US Style
A hat tip to Shani Hartley for spotting this fantastic resource from the New York Times. Readers are invited to survey a large number of policy options that might either control fiscal spending or raise extra tax revenues. Checking the boxes you prefer feeds through to deficit reduction and fiscal packages can be shared online. Here is the link.
A Hip Hop Take on Currency Wars
A hat tip to Brian Rafferty for spotting this super hip hop take on the unspoken currency war between the United States and China. Check out the US-Sino Currency Battle!
Here we go again - high tariffs and currency wars
In 1930 the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act was passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. It was an attempt (by increasing tariffs) to ease the effects of the Great Depression but in fact it made it worse. Recently the House of Representatives passed legislation aimed at imposing trade sanctions against China unless it allows its currency to appreciate, thus diminishing its export advantage. Furthermore Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner warned against currency policies that might intensify “short-term distortions in favour of exports.”
read more...»A2 Macro - Economic Growth Charts
We started our teaching this year by looking at issues related to measuring living standards and now we are moving onto aspects of the causes and consequences of economic growth.
I like to put growth into some kind of context by drawing on recent UK cyclical data and growth information for a range of other countries. I have attached a brief powerpoint of such charts with this blog which may be of some use for colleagues.
One of the interesting trends for many OECD countries is that estimated trend growth (the % change in potentail) GDP has fallen sharply in recent years. Indeed for Spain and Ireland, trend growth estimates have dropped into negative territory. Mo’s recent blog on hysteresis links in part to why this is happening.
Download the A2 Macro Growth Charts
Economic_Growth_Charts.pptx
Hysteresis in the US Economy
The idea of hysteresis from the current recession is well illustrated in this article.
Millions of Americans risk falling out of the job market forever, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said today, as it cautioned a full recovery will take years. This recession has left the US with a long-term unemployment rate - a measure of those without work for more than six months - of 4.5pc, almost double that seen in the downturns of the 1980s and 1990s… Read more here.
read more...»U.S recession
The U.S. recession will probably be the longest since World War Two and could worsen without heavy government spending, according to a closely-watched survey of economists released on Saturday. Read more here…
Currencies in the News - Two Videos
Movements in the external value of currencies have direct and indirect effects on plenty of macroeconomic variables such as inflation, exports, output, profits and - ultimately - jobs. This week we have seen the Japanese central bank intervening in the foreign exchange market in an attempt to drive the value of the Yen lower. Japan is struggling to sustain a recovery after the global financial crisis and a weaker currency is seen as a vital part of the attempt to prevent another draining bout of price deflation.
And the long-running dispute between the United States and China about the alleged under-valuation of the Yuan against the US dollar continues to rumble. This BBC news video takes a swing through New Jersey to find trade unions lobbying government for more action on the exchange rate issue.
Fears rise for a double dip over the pond
There are some very worrying signs for the United States today with the news that new home sales (for completed properties and those under construction) have dropped to to their lowest level for nearly 50 years. Dr Doom, Noruiel Roubini has tweeted that the risk of a double dip recession in advanced economies (comprising the USA, Japan, the Eurozone and the UK) has now risen to 40%.
The fall in new home sales is taken as a litmus test of weakening confidence and signs that the fiscal and monetary policy stimulus policies have started to run out of steam. Unemployment claims in the USA are up to 500K per month and a fresh descent into recession in the labouy-intensive US construction industry will give deeper deflationary pressure on the world’s largest economy. Since the start of the global financial crisis, US construction businesses have shed more than two million jobs.
In a related feature, Nouriel Roubini takes tea with the Economist and discusses some of the main systemic risks for the global economy.
Inequality and the risk of financial crisis
Are there causal links between the scale of income and wealth inequality and the risks of financial crisis and distress? This article from the New York Times reports on research from David A Moss at the Harvard Business School who continues to mine cross country data on inequalities to see if there are close correlations with banking crises in particular countries.
Might it be the case that persistent relative poverty among lower income groups was a factor driving the expansion of sub-prime lending and excessive borrowing on very expensive credit cards?
Or was the sub-prime debacle largely the result of inappropriate financial deregulation and policy interest rates being held close to zero for too long rather than a trend rise in inequality?
What of the incentives of people at the top of the income scale? Has the rising economic power and influence of the super rich played some role in creating the conditions for financial and macroeconomic instability.
Correlation does not necessarily imply causation as the article makes clear in an interview with Glenn Hubbard from the Columbia Business School.
