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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Eurozone Watch
"Monitoring economics and economic governance of the euro area”
Today, the European Commission presented further ideas for the reform of economic governance in the EU and EMU. The package contains six legislative proposals, including a second reform of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) and macro-economic coordination (see here). With the media having reported some of the ...
Last week, the Grand Coalition made sure that their legacy in Germany's economic policy stance will be far beyond the next election on September 27, 2008. After the Bundestag had already voted to amend the constitution and to include a sweeping ban on public borrowing a couple weeks ago, the ...
In our new contribution for Project Syndicate, we argue that the European Monetary Union needs a new stability pact which limits not government budgets, but imbalances in the current accounts of the member states. In such a pact, both deficit and surplus countries would be required to use their fiscal ...
In a new publication for the American Institute of Contemporary German Studies (AICGS) at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., I argue that no matter who is going to win the election in Germany in September, Germany will continue to be an obstacle to the reduction of global imbalances. ...
The probable junior partner in Germany’s new coalition, the liberal FDP, on Sunday reached a historically strong result with around 14.6 percent (estimate of 11:54 p.m.) of the votes. For the first time in eleven years, it is set to join the federal government. Given its strong result, FDP chairman Guido Westerwelle ...
According to recent news reports, the new German coaliton government has found a nice trick which would allow them to cut taxes in the years from 2011 onwards without having to cut spending nor having to borrow more at that time.
Sounds too good to be true? Right. It is not ...
Yesterday’s decision by the Ecofin to water down the Commission’s proposal on the reform of the European Financial Market supervision to make it little more than a teethless tiger is deplorable. But the last word is not spoken – the European Parliament seems set to give the Ecofin a hard ...
The Greek case is moving markets – and minds. Over the last few weeks, for instance the German government including Angela Merkel has become a strong proponent of economic policy coordination in the Eurozone. Not only financial markets are nervous these days. Politicians and high officials in particular in the ...
After weeks of contradictory statements on the question how to handle Greece, the Heads of State and Government of the EU member states used their informal European Council meeting on February 11th for a strong political signal that aimed at calming markets and giving political support to the Greek ...
I have been asked to testify in front of the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the planned financial supervisory structure in the European Union and I had my hearing in Brussels last week. Here is my statement:
Dear Ms. Chairwoman Sharon Bowles, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me first ...



