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Free exchange The American economy R.A. | WASHINGTON Should the Fed be more concerned? THE Federal Reserve has just released the minutes from its April meeting, which include the FOMC’s economic projections. A glance at their figures suggests that the Fed has grown more confident in the state of the American recovery. The 2010 growth [...]
Free exchange Inflation G.I. | WASHINGTON Downside price risk reasserts itself THE deflation meme is back. Today the Bureau of Labour Statistics reported that headline consumer prices fell in April, though they’re up 2.2% from a year ago. Excluding food and energy, core prices were flat and up just 0.9% from a year earlier, the [...]
Free exchange Housing markets R.A. | WASHINGTON The burdensome supply of foreclosed homes Images: THE Mortgage Bankers Association has released its report on first quarter mortgage foreclosures, and the news isn’t that good: The seasonally adjusted delinquency rate increased for all loan types with the exception of FHA loans. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the [...]
Free exchange Management R.A. | WASHINGTON A look at CEO hiring practices I APPRECIATE the blunt honestly of this paper‘s title: Risk and the CEO market: Why do some large firms hire highly-paid, low-talent CEOs? Why indeed? The research is the work of Alex Edmans and Xavier Gabaix, and the abstract reads: This paper presents [...]
Free exchange Inflation R.A. | WASHINGTON Consumer prices in America continue to drop Images: IT’S time once again for our monthly(ish) look at inflation data. Today, the Bureau of Labour Statistics released its latest consumer price data, which showed a seasonally-adjusted decline in headline prices of 0.1%. Here’s a look at the 12-month percentage change [...]
Peter Wehner says my employer has a double standard on gay rights.
Seriously, it was a weird semester (or ‘is’, since it isn’t technically over yet). On the very bright side, my upper-division writing class was wonderful – I think this was the first time in thirteen years of teaching that every student in a class completed every major assignment (I’ll ignore a handful of minor, not-paper [...]
Free exchange The Economist R.A. | WASHINGTON A new hub for economics analysis TODAY, The Economist is launching its Economics channel page, conveniently located at www.economist.com/economics. The channel is your one-stop shop for all of The Economist‘s economics coverage, from the print edition and the web, including the best from our blogs, audio, video, and [...]
Free exchange Education R.A. | WASHINGTON College opens doors ADAM OZIMEK disagrees with my take on the value of college educations, and in particular that: …wage premiums indicate that markets are certainly interested in having a larger pool of university graduates from which to hire, and increasing that pool by shrinking the pool of non-graduates [...]
Free exchange Debt crisis R.A. | WASHINGTON Is the European crisis good for the American economy? THE European crisis seems like bad news for everyone, but Tim Duy argues that Americans may end up benefitting slightly, on net, from the drama: First, the weaker Euro has taken a bite out of oil prices, which fell [...]