Economics Roundtable
Calculated Risk
Read the Bill McBride interview.
Jobs
The best summary of the state of our economy is the graph (below) of employment as a fraction of population for people over 16 years old. The decrease is large, but the most troubling feature of the graph is the flat trend .
Click on the image to get a bigger version.
June Payroll Employment
The slowndown in employment growth over the past few months is starting to become more apparent in the graph below.
Click on the image to get a bigger version.
Focus on the Problem
U.S. payroll employment peaked at 132.5 million jobs in February 2001. For April 2012, U.S. payroll employment had reached 133.0 million jobs, marking the third month in a row above the February 2001 level.
Click on the image to get a bigger version.
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.
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.
EconModel
The Economics Roundtable is sponsored by EconModel.
The Classic Economic Models cover micro, macro, and financial markets.
VoxEU
"Research-based policy analysis and commentary from Europe’s leading economists”
Public debt held by non-residents has been on the rise over the last few decades – that is until the global crisis. This column looks at how the ownership of government bonds in the G20 and the Eurozone. It finds that increased foreign bondholders bring costs ...
One negative side-effect of trade liberalisation that has often been underplayed is the fiscal aspect. This column provides evidence from 110 trade-liberalisation episodes that tariff cuts lead to lower tax revenues as a share of GDP. The drop is highest in poor countries that ...
Will the London Olympics provide a major boost for employment in Stratford, as promised? This column presents evidence from a study in the UK, which, if applied to the Olympics, suggests that we shouldn’t count on it – many of the jobs will go ...
Bank bonuses may not have changed much in the last few years, but their owners have. This column asks whether government-owned banks may bring stability to the supply of credit over the business cycle and especially at a time of financial ...
Canada and Mexico have recently been invited to join negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This column argues this is a big deal. It could produce a domino effect, beginning with the addition of Japan and Korea and leading to a model 21st century trade area encompassing ...
What are the spillover effects within a fiscal union? This column looks at evidence within bond markets for individual US states and the market for US Treasury securities. Results are twofold. First, there are negative spillovers between most markets for individual US ...
The WTO and its predecessor the GATT have been remarkably successful in negotiating down tariffs over the past six decades. But trade is still a long way from free and since the global crisis, it is becoming even less so. This column reviews the ...
Financial market once again pushed Eurozone leaders to act. European Central Bank President Draghi recently promised to “do whatever it takes”. This column argues that Draghi made an implicit commitment to act as lender of last resort to Eurozone governments. This means optimism may be justified ...
The escalation of the crisis in the Eurozone calls for new measures to reduce yields on Spanish and Italian bonds. This column succinctly lays out the options and finds them wanting. It argues that sovereign bond purchases might not be sufficient to reassure investors. ...
Should we give up on the Doha Round and leave the WTO standing still? This column argues that such stalemate is dangerous – the WTO needs to be kept busy.
Full Article: Keeping the WTO busy while the Doha Round is stuck