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Peter Macfarlane reporting from Tocumen Airport in Panama, in transit to the Caribbean… I don’t write much in Q Bytes about my travels, but most of my clients are aware that I travel almost constantly… meeting clients and suppliers, doing research and due diligence. The last few weeks I have been in South America driving [...]
Free exchange Global trade R.A. | WASHINGTON The trade implications of European crisis MICHAEL PETTIS wrote an important post the other day, on why the trouble in Europe and the euro’s resulting decline against the renminbi doesn’t mean that China should delay revaluation. He argues that internal European imbalances hadn’t been considered a global problem [...]
Free exchange Financial reform R.A. | WASHINGTON Financial reform close to becoming law YESTERDAY, the Senate passed the Dodd financial reform bill, which will now move to a conference committee where differences between the Senate bill and the House bill are hashed out. You can read The Economist‘s detailed take on what the bill would [...]
Free exchange Global recovery R.A. | WASHINGTON An economic hiccup or something worse? Images: IT HASN’T been the best couple of weeks for the global economy. China is officially in a bear equity market. Europe appears to be headed toward financial crisis or years of sluggish growth, or possibly both. America’s housing market stalled out [...]
Free exchange Finance A. S. | NEW YORK Is there an equity premium? Then what is it? EQUITIES just aren’t what they used to be. It was once gospel that equities out-perform low-risk bonds. But if you invested in the stockmarket around 1999 the balance of your portfolio probably suggests otherwise. During the post-war era [...]
This video (via Mark Perry) describes some neat data. It seems to me that some clever dissertation-writer in economics should be able to use it for good effect, although exactly how is not obvious.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) still has not discovered or explained what triggered the now infamous 1,000 points plunge on May 6, 2010 – enough to wipe more than US$1 trillion in U.S. market value. The 9.2% drop was the biggest intraday percentage loss since 1987 and largest point drop ever. This event may [...]
Free exchange Climate policy R.A. | WASHINGTON Towards a coherent explanation of climate policy CBO Director Doug Elmendorf has written a blog post detailing five lessons we can learn from economic analysis of the issue of greenhouse gas emissions reductions. It’s a fairly standard summary of the basic economic view of climate policy, which is [...]
Free exchange Economics R.A. | WASHINGTON Understanding the process of decision making MARK THOMA directs us to an interesting piece on “identity economics” by George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton, who write: When we examine people’s decisions from the perspective of their identities and social norms, we get new answers to many different economic questions. Who [...]