Month-on-month indicators down, particularly core PCE: Figure 1: Month-on-month CPI inflation (blue), PCE inflation (black). NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: BLS and BEA, and author’s calculations. Figure…
Year-on-year picture: Figure 1: Year-on-year growth rate of GDP, seasonally adjusted (blue), not seasonally adjusted (tan), and not seasonally adjusted GDO (green). GDO is the arithmetic average of GDP and…
With consumption (nominal at 0.2% vs.0.4% consensus) and personal income May releases, we have the following snapshot of some key indicators followed by the NBER BCDC. Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll…
Mr. Steven Kopits writes: But by and large, VMT on a 12 mms basis turns a bit before or right at the start of a recession. I take the not…
From BEA today: Figure 1: GDP, 3rd release (dark bold blue), 2nd release (light blue), GDO, 3rd release (dark bold red), 2nd release (light red), both in billions Ch.2012$, SAAR.…
Mr. Steven Kopits writes: Another is vehicle miles traveled, which is either very short term leading (ie, failing one month or so prior to the official onset of recession), coincident,…
Some people point to initial claims for unemployment insurance. Atkinson and Wei today point out seasonal adjustment issues are probably behind the apparent rise in seasonally adjusted initial claims. Looking…
Some additional notes for my students: Why I try to understand where the data come from before accusing people of distorting or hiding data Why I don’t a priori accuse…
Notes for my students: Why I use logs and Why Jim Hamilton uses logs Why we don’t divide chain-weighted quantities by chain-weighted quantities Why we use confidence intervals (and other…
of GDP, along with current Gross Domestic Output (average of GDP and GDI): Figure 1: GDP (black), Gross Domestic Output (tan), IHS-Markit tracking (red triangle), GDPNow (green square), Goldman Sachs…
Year-on-year CPI headline inflation is expected to be lower as of a year from now, ranging from 4.2% to 6.8%. Figure 1: CPI inflation year-on-year (black), median expected from Survey…
Reader Steven Kopits writes: I think 2011 has a decent call on being a recession. It’s the only time in US history when oil consumption fell — and fell substantially…
Look around at enough indicators (say vehicle miles traveled) and you might think so. A follow up to this post. Let’s look at what conventional and high frequency indicators say.…
Robert Haveman, a prime force behind the establishment of the La Follette School of Public Affairs, passed last week. Today, Tim Smeeding, a longtime friend, colleague, co-author and student of…
For reference: US China trade deal phase 1 tracker: Biden and Phase 1 – autos and aircraft 2018 Tariffs and trade Goods exports to China (DoC ITA data):
A tautology: MV ≡ PQ Where M is money, V is velocity, P is price level, Q is economic activity. Assume V’ is constant; then: MV’ = PQ Take logs…
High inflation not just in the US: Figure 1: Year-on-year CPI inflation for US (black), Euro area (HICP) (tan), UK (green), Canada (red), Australia (pink), in %. NBER defined peak-to-trough…
Key phrase buried in the Appendix to the Badger Institute‘s study entitled: “Unemployment (Over)compensation: How the federal supplemental unemployment benefits impacted unemployment during the pandemic” (April 2022). From the executive…
From 2019, pay special attention to CoRev’s statistical analysis (at the end): Reader JBH writes: “Employment has done marvelously well under this president.” I laughed and laughed and laughed when…
Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A…
I’m giving a presentation on what determines Wisconsin exports. Here’s an interesting finding – since 2018, real goods exports have underperformed what would’ve been expected based on rest-of-world GDP and…
From the Michigan consumer survey and the Survey of Professional Forecasters: Figure 1: Michigan 12 month ahead forecast error (blue), and Survey of Professional Forecasters median forecast error (red), in…
Today, we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Filippo Natoli of the Directorate General for Economics, Statistics and Research of the Bank of Italy. The views presented…
At February 10th levels, but 10yr-2yr term spread below. Figure 1: 10yr-3mo Treasury spread (blue, left scale), and 5yr Treasury-TIPS spread (red, right scale), both in %. Source: Treasury via…
That’s the title of a conference (June 16-17) I had the pleasure of attending. The agenda is shown below (I have included links to the papers where publicly available, but…
For the consideration of some people. The Sahm Rule for determining a recession onset in real time is based on a greater than 50 bps increase in the 3 month…
Some people assert when polls of the public indicate a majority think we’re in a recession, we’re in a recession, definitionally. Some people believe that when there are two consecutive…
Results from the survey (taken June 6-8), re: GDP, prices, recession: Figure 1: GDP (bold black), potential GDP (gray), CBO projection published May (blue), Survey of Professional Forecasters published May…
Month-on-month vs year-on-year, and headline, chained, sticky price, 16% trimmed, and (for April) PCE deflator. First, remember the distinction between m/m (which is more informative regarding contemporaneous conditions), and y/y…
That’s the title I gave for an essay published in the Nikkei today: [Link to article] Here’s the text in English: Every decade, the debate over the dollar’s role as…
That’s a comment by a reader. The index is indeed correlated with recessions, but not necessarily with oil shock recessions only, nor is it always an indicator of a recession.…
Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A shorter…
With the release of employment last Friday, we have the following picture of series followed by the NBER BCDC. Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment (dark blue), industrial production (red), personal…
The simple sum of the unemployment rate and the (y/y) inflation rate: Figure 1: “Misery index” as sum of inflation and unemployment rate, in % (blue, left scale), and University…
unadjusted for composition: Figure 1: Average hourly earnings in leisure and hospitality services (blue, left log scale), and in total private nonfarm payroll (brown, right scale), in 2020$. May observation…
Estimating through end-May, count regression (negative binomial, maximum likelihood): casualtiest = –1.72 – 0.72 bant + 1.21 trumpt – 0.14 bident +0.00001popt Adj-R2 = 0.022, SER = 32.6, NOBS = 389. Bold denotes significance at…
With the release of monthly GDP today, and income and consumption earlier, we have the following picture of series followed by the NBER BCDC. Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment (dark…
Today, we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Ron Alquist (Senior Economist and Policy Advisor, Financial Stability Oversight Council), Benjamin R. Chabot (Knowledge Leader, Federal Reserve Bank…
Estimated and reported: Figure 1: Share of central bank foreign exchange reserves in USD + 60% of unallocated reserves (dark blue), euro share + 35% of unallocated reserves (tan), Japanese…
Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A…
Figure 1: Mass shooting fatalities (blue, left scale), and wounded (brown, right scale). Gray shading denotes assault weapons ban; orange denotes Trump administration. Source: Mother Jones accessed 5/2/2022, author’s calculations.…
From Natixis today, “China’s muted inflationary pressure at home contrasts with booming export prices feeding global inflation”: An obvious reason to explain China’s low inflation rate is the weaker demand…
As noted in the post by Rashad Ahmad, foreign yield curve developments helped predict US growth. What did those spreads do? And, turning the question on its head, what does…
Core CPI has accelerated in many countries. Using Ha, Kose and Ohnsorge (World Bank) database: Figure 1: Core CPI, s.a., in logs 2021M03=0. Australia series, n.s.a., interpolated from quarterly data…
Today we are fortunate to be able to present a guest contribution written by Rashad Ahmed (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, US Treasury). The views presented are solely…
That’s the title of a Bloomberg article yesterday. Every few years, there’s talk about concerted action to weaken the dollar, as in 2015. There’s good reason to wish for a…
Even under optimistic assumptions, growth is going to miss the government’s target. Figure 1: Chinese real GDP, 2019Q1=1 (black), Goldman Sachs previous forecast (blue), Goldman Sachs May 18 forecast (red),…
(log first differences): Figure 1: Log first difference of daily S&P 500 index. Light orange shading denotes Trump administration. Source: FRED, and author’s calculations.
Here is a snapshot of yield curves at the beginning of March of four years, and as of today. Figure 1: Treasury yield curves, %. Source: US Treasury. There is…
Since the Covid pandemic struck in the US in 2020M02, 1.1 percentage points; since 2021M03, 1.6 percentage points, using HICPs (0.4 ppts and 0.7 ppts, respectively using CPI for US,…