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Blog
Seasonal Adjustments Roughly Account for Reported Drop in Unemployment Rate
In Friday’s post, I pointed out that unemployment and employment numbers announced by the BLS had apparently been changed greatly by the process of adjusting for typical seasonal changes. These adjustments are meant to account, for example, for the fact that retail business is generally stronger than usual during the holiday season at the end of each [...]
Blog
Beneath the Surface, Some Disappointing Unemployment Data
A note on the unemployment figures released earlier this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), reporting the results of a January survey of U.S. households: The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 9.4 percent in December to 9.0 percent last month, a healthy improvement. On the other hand, before seasonal adjustment, the unemployment [...]
Blog
A New Peek at the Secrets of the Fed?
In December, the Levy Institute issued a working paper that asked how the economy might be affected by the seemingly unusual fiscal and monetary policies implemented by the Fed and other central banks since 2008. The authors, Dimitri Papadimitriou and I, used a phrase that is not often spoken in this era by governments and central banks around the world: “monetizing the deficit.” This phrase traditionally describes the [...]
Blog
Education, earnings and age in the Great Recession
Reading the back and forth between Brad deLong and David Leonhardt over the structural versus cyclical nature of unemployment during the Great Recession, a question nagged at me, spurred by this quote from Leonhardt: The data that the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on Thursday gives me a chance to explain why I disagree. In [...]
Blog
Long-Term Interest Rates Brought Up to Date
Last summer, this blogger posted a graph showing the path followed by U.S. long-term interest rates since 1925. There has been some interest in a new and updated graph, especially in light of concerns that bond markets might soon demand higher yields as the economy expanded. One appears above. Reasons for apprehension about a possible [...]
Working Paper No. 650
Fiscal Policy: Why Aggregate Demand Management Fails and What to Do about It
This paper argues for a fundamental reorientation of fiscal policy, from the current aggregate demand management model to a model that explicitly and directly targets the unemployed. Even though aggregate demand management has several important benefits in stabilizing an unstable economy, it also has a number of serious drawbacks that merit its reconsideration. The paper […]
Working Paper No. 649
Fiscal Policy Effectiveness: Lessons from the Great Recession
This paper reconsiders fiscal policy effectiveness in light of the recent economic crisis. It examines the fiscal policy approach advocated by the economics profession today and the specific policy actions undertaken by the Bush and Obama administrations. An examination of the labor market renders the contemporary aggregate demand–management approach wholly inadequate for achieving certain macroeconomic […]
Summary No. 1
Summary Winter 2011
New policy briefs by Senior Scholars Jan Kregel and L. Randall Wray are featured in the Summary’s Winter issue. Kregel finds that export-led growth and free capital flows are the real causes of sustained international imbalances. The only way out of this predicament is to shift to domestic demand–led development strategies—and capital flows will have […]
Blog
The impact of the recession on jobs
The Economic Policy Institute has produced an interesting analysis on jobs lost and recovered in U.S. post-war recessions. They show how many months were needed, since the beginning of a recession, to get back to the initial employment level. However, the working population is growing over time, so getting back to the employment level of, [...]
Blog
Will the U.S. recover lost output and jobs?
At the last meeting of the American Economic Association in Denver, Giuseppe Fontana discussed the theoretical arguments on whether the Great Recession will generate a permanent loss in output. He argued that, according to the dominant “New Consensus” theory, output should return to its historical path once the shock has been absorbed. Alternative, heterodox theories, [...]
Report No. 1
Report January 2011
The January Report highlights a new policy brief by Senior Scholar Jan Kregel that offers an alternative view of global imbalances and international reserve currencies. Kregel finds that export-led growth and free capital flows are the real causes of sustained international imbalances. The only way out of this predicament is to shift to domestic demand–led […]
Working Paper No. 648
Views of European Races among the Research Staff of the US Immigration Commission and the Census Bureau, ca. 1910
This paper discusses support for, and opposition to, racial classification of European immigrants among high-level researchers at both the United States Immigration Commission of 1907–11 (the Dillingham Commission) and the Census Bureau during those same years. A critical distinction must be made between the Commission members—political appointees who mostly supported some form of restriction at […]