Monthly Archives: December 2012

Simon Wren Lewis joins the debate on the State of Macro. How do you judge the health of an academic discipline? Is macroeconomics rotten or flourishing? Stephen Williamson is right that in one sense it is flourishing: many interesting avenues are being explored, … Continue reading →

According to David Altig: What if, rather than some measure of nominal GDP, the 2004–06 Fed had instead been solely focused on the inflation rate? You can’t answer that question without operationalizing what it means to be “focused on the … Continue reading →

Noahpinion has a laugh at the expense of MMs who think Abe could make a diference in Japan. According to Noah. Abe is mainly interested in social and cultural issues. He is the Japanese style of socio-cultural conservative, sort of … Continue reading →

From Jeff Frankel: The time is right for the world’s major central banks to reconsider the framework they use in conducting monetary policy. The US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are grappling with sustained economic weakness, despite years … Continue reading →

CalculatedRisk tries an optimistic note: Discussions of the business cycle frequently focus on consumer spending (PCE: Personal consumption expenditures), but the key is to watch private domestic investment, especially residential investment. Even though private investment usually only accounts for around 15% of … Continue reading →

In a recent post, Taylor writes: Hundreds of research papers have been written on the nature and causes of the Great Moderation, which got started around 1983. While that research began long after the Great Moderation got underway (I published one of … Continue reading →

One must miss Greenspan when a senior Fed researcher has to try and ‘make transparency transparent’: As a regular, satisfied customer of The Wall Street Journal‘s “Heard on the Street” feature, I was a bit distressed to read this, from an … Continue reading →

The Economist just published “The 12 charts of 2012”. Chart number 4 is: In such lifeless company America’s economy looked almost vibrant (chart 3). Its housing market turned a corner in 2012 (chart 4), and its unemployment rate fell steadily. … Continue reading →

This is MCK: THOSE who want central bankers to focus to changes in nominal incomes (NGDP or NGDI growth) rather than the pace of consumer price increases (CPI or PCE inflation) have made tremendous progress over the past few years, at least when … Continue reading →

Is ‘storming’ through Japan. The implication is that the stock market index correlates positively with inflation expectations while the exchange rate travels in the opposite direction.     We hope that Abe goes through with his ‘threats’!