Big Step Toward US Energy Independence
Obama's Department of Energy approval of liquified natural gas exports from Freeport to Japan and EU
24 minutes ago
United States Channel: Latest Posts
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United States
The Trapdoors at the Fed’s Exit
The ongoing weakness of America’s economy – where deleveraging in the private and public sectors continues apace – has led to stubbornly high unemployment and sub-par growth. The effects of fiscal austerity – a sharp rise in taxes and a sharp fall in government spending since the beginning of the year – are undermining economic [...]
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United States
Medical Journal Editorial Blasts Obamacare for Increasing Underinsurance
During the protracted Congressional fight over the Affordable Care Act, its supporters kept stressing the importance of extending coverage to tens of millions of uninsured. But some observers, including your humble blogger, warned that having overpriced insurance that didn’t cover much was a headfake, not real progress. Physicians for a National Health Program has gotten access [...]
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Ed Dolan's Econ Blog
US GDP Growth Accelerates from a Crawl to a Walk in Q1
US GDP growth accelerated from a crawl to a walk in the first quarter of 2013, according to the advance estimate issued today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The reported annual growth rate of 2.5 percent was just a bit faster than the average rate during the recovery, and much stronger than the 0.4 [...]
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United States
U.S. Jobless Claims Fell Last Week, Close To A 5-Year Low
Today’s update on jobless claims should dampen worries a bit over the outlook for the economy. New filings for unemployment dropped a healthy 16,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 339,000. Once again, claims are moving close to the post-recession low of 330,000 reached back in January—a five year low. One number doesn’t mean much, of course, [...]
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United States
Growing Pains For The Housing Market
The modest decline in existing home sales in March in Monday’s update from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) prompted some pundits to wonder if the housing rebound is topping out. Anything’s possible, but the reason why sales slipped in March suggests that the market’s suffering from growing pains rather than facing a cyclical turn for the [...]
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United States
The Ongoing Dereliction of Duty
[Note: see update below] Last year I made the case that the Fed’s failure to keep nominal income growth expectations stable was a dereliction of duty: [We] have long made the case that a nominal GDP (NGDP) level target would firmly anchor the expected growth path of nominal income. Doing so, in turn, would stabilize current nominal spending since households [...]
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United States
Monetary Policy and Financial Stability
I think it is difficult to ignore the role of asset prices in the dynamics of the past two business cycles: If the objective of monetary policy is a combination of low inflation and unemployment, I think it is difficult to argue that the Federal Reserve pursued an overly loose policy stance in the periods [...]
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United States
Chicago Fed: ‘Slower Economic Activity In March’
US economic growth slowed last month, expanding at a rate that’s moderately below the historical trend, according to the March release of theChicago Fed National Activity Index, a weighted average of 85 indicators. But the index’s three-month moving average (CFNAI-MA3) posted a somewhat brighter reading: -0.01 for last month. That’s in line with expectations and a signal that [...]
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United States
No Time for Austerity: US Edition
With unemployment at 7.6% and an output gap of around 6%, it’s (still) not the time to embark on front-loaded spending cuts in the United States. Figure 1: Log GDP (blue), CBO baseline projection under current law (red), and potential GDP (gray bold). NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Source: BEA, 2012Q4 3rd release, CBO, Budget and [...]
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United States
Our Long-Term Unemployment Challenge (In Charts)
The reasons why employment has lagged in the recovery remains a central challenge for macro policymakers, influencing the fiscal debate as well as figuring prominently in Federal Reserve justification for its current unorthodox policies. My colleague Dinah Walker points out a growing body of evidence that the problem of long-term unemployment is at the heart [...]
