One of the reasons that it is been so hard for a lot of analysts, even trained economists, to understand the imbalances that were at the root of the current crisis is that we too easily confuse national savings with household savings. By coincidence there was recently a very interesting debate on the subject involving several economists, … Read more
Yesterday, the Teranet-National Bank National Composite House Price Index for Canada was released. It showed that 12-month home price inflation in Canada was down to 2.0%, the lowest level since November 2009. And given the huge amount of talk in Canada about a potential housing bubble, there is a worry that this is the beginning of a housing bust. You … Read more
Today, there is a consensus among Russian economists that the country’s government should encourage labor migration from the former Soviet Union. Such respected experts as Sergey Guriev, the rector of the New Economic School in Moscow, and Aleh Tsyvinski, a professor of economics at Yale University, strongly oppose the establishment of barriers to migration from the Central … Read more
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned Hyman Minsky’s new book, “Ending Poverty: Jobs, Not Welfare”, less than $14 at Amazon. There is also a Kindle version. Take a look at the cover: MinskyFullCover3-14 — Minsky looking like a bit of a rougue! Here’s a link to Amazon (cut and paste if it doesn’t work):http://www.amazon.com/Ending-Poverty-Jobs-Not-Welfare/dp/1936192314/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364998534&sr=1-2 I thought you … Read more
In a surprising turn of events, the Fed announced this morning that it is ramping up its quantitative easing policy. As you know, it has been buying $85 Billion in bonds every month, boosting its balance sheet above $3.3 Trillion. However, that has had no perceptible impact on the economy, which is slipping back toward … Read more
The future never resembles the past – as we well know. But, generally speaking, our imagination and our knowledge are too weak to tell us what particular changes to expect. We do not know what the future holds. Nevertheless, as living and moving beings, we are forced to act. – John Maynard Keynes Discussions of … Read more
Lars Christensen nails it on the confusion surrounding Abenomics: There has been a lot of focus on the fact that USD/JPY has now broken above 100 and that the slide in the yen is going to have a positive impact on Japanese exports. In fact it seems like most commentators and economists think that the easing of … Read more
In a number of posts recently I have highlighted the impact of declining workforces on economic growth (here, for example, or here, or here) and the way the policies persued to address the Euro debt crisis are having the impact of accelerating the movement of young people away from the periphery and towards the core (here, … Read more
Hi, I’ll make a presentation tomorrow; here’s a sneak peek. Pavlina Tcherneva has organized back-to-back presentations for the morning; the first is on fiscal policy and the second is on monetary policy. Here are the line-ups: SESSION 1: Park 5; Saturday, May 11, 9:30-10:50 Fiscal Policy after the Crisis Session Organizer & Chair: Pavlina R. … Read more
One does not hear much these days about “peak oil”, as new technologies are developed and implemented that, together with market conditions, make feasible the exploitation of previously uneconomical or irretrievable deposits. A new report by the Diplomatic Center for Strategic Studies (DCSS), based in Kuwait, just published, confirms an International Energy Agency report from … Read more