Economics Roundtable

Graph-of-the-Year Candidates

Donald Marron likes European interest rates. Click on the image to get a bigger version. Can you find three distinct subperiods?

Brad DeLong favors the U.S. gdp gap.

Finally, it's hard to argue against the payroll employment graph below (straight from FRED) and the comparison across recessions (courtesy of Calculated Risk).


Looking Up At 2001

In February 2001, U.S. payroll employment peaked at 132.5 million. The November 2011 figure of 131.7 million still falls 800,000 jobs short of the earlier peak.


Click on the chart for a larger version.


November Payroll Employment


Remember M1?

Money Supply M1 growth is now over 20% per year over a 12 month lag. M1 growth has touched 20% before, but not with excess reserves of $1.6 trillion. Where is M1 headed?


Click on the chart for a larger version.


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Private Sector Development Blog

"A market approach to development thinking”


September 20, 2011, 1:35 pm, 899395

For all of us working towards providing a better business and regulatory environment, it is important to know whether economic analysis has improved the quality of regulatory decisions. A proper analysis of the costs and benefits associated with regulations (government rules that govern private activity) is critical in determining which ...


March 24, 2011, 7:35 pm, 836850

Over the past decade foreign direct investment (FDI) has become a major force in developing and transition economies. In 2010 the volume of FDI to developing and transition economies for the first time exceeded the FDI to rich economies. In a speech on Democratizing Development Economics delivered at ...


March 22, 2011, 11:34 am, 835812

The United Nations seems to have a day for everything, from poetry (March 20) to families (May 15) to statistics (October 20). They even have a day for mountains (December 11). Most of these days come and go without much fuss or attention.


February 21, 2011, 1:34 pm, 825135

Editor’s Note: Michael Klein is the former Vice President of Financial and Private Sector Development of the World Bank Group and is currently Visiting Professor at Harvard and Johns Hopkins University.

Nairobi 2006. Making Finance Work for Africa is the topic. Bankers, officials of monetary authorities, regulators, representatives of the IMF ...


January 20, 2011, 1:34 pm, 813048

By: Mohammad Amin and Arvind Jain

The Enterprise Analysis Unit at the World Bank recently put out a short Country Note on the current state of the business climate in Azerbaijan. The note is based on newly collected firm-level data on various aspects of the business climate and experiences of ...


January 18, 2011, 11:34 am, 812017

You might find it hard to believe, but high prices of onions can trigger the fall of the government in India. In 1998, a supply side shock led to a sharp increase in onion prices in the country and most notably, in the state of Delhi. In the ...


January 13, 2011, 5:35 pm, 809430

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January 10, 2011, 5:35 pm, 808091

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January 4, 2011, 3:35 pm, 805948

In an article last month in the Boston Review, Kentaro Toyama, a former computer scientist for Microsoft turned ICT4D promoter, confronts the limits of technological solutions to development problems:

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January 4, 2011, 11:35 am, 805831

Most of the attention on governance in developing countries is on developing efficient rules and regulations. That is, given the social and economic priorities of a country, rules and regulations should work towards achieving priorities in the least costly way. However, another dimension of governance that must be discussed is ...