Econ70

Having spent $300 billion supporting the renminbi over the last year, and with exports down 8.3% Y-o-Y and its economy slowing, China finally capitulated and let its currency depreciate. China may again need to lower interest rates and reserve ratios.…

Between 1975 and 2005, residential fixed investment (RFI) was about 4.7% of GDP. RFI is composed of single-family construction activity which averaged about 2.25% of GDP, broker commissions of about 0.75%, renovations and improvements of 1%, and multifamily of 0.4%.…

Wage assistance programs aren’t generally a subsidy to low-wage employers. Medicaid, TANF, SNAP and CHP reduce the supply of low wage workers, because the unemployed qualify for benefits thus decreasing their incentive to work. This disincentive raises the wage necessary…

The Friday File: The Bureau of Economic Analysis recently launched a new economic data series called Final Sales to Private Domestic Purchasers (FSPDP). This is awesome! What more could an economist want? This series will exclude the most volatile components…

While kudos are due to Netflix and Microsoft for dramatically increasing their paid maternity leave policy, this will damage career prospects for woman as they will now probably be out of the labor force longer than before. A better solution;…

Despite a very manageable budget deficit for the next few years, budget hijinks will soon return to DC. A bi-partisan budget agreement that provided substantial sequestration relief through FY15 expires 10/1/15, the debt limit of $18.2 trillion will be reached…

The inflation-adjusted median wealth of families headed by someone over 61 rose 40% between 1989 and 2013, from $150,000 to $210,000. For households headed by someone aged 40 to 61, wealth fell 31% from $154,000 to $106,000, while for households…

Recently revised GDP numbers show that GDP in Q1/15 grew at 0.6% not by -0.2%, but also revealed that GDP growth was just 2% between 2012 and 2014, not 2.3%, a sizable reduction. This means labor productivity growth is worse…

The Friday File: Over the past 6.5 years, trustee Irving Picard has recovered almost $11 billion of the $17 billion stolen by Bernard Madoff. But this work has been costly. At $413.30/hour after a “public interest” discount of 10%, the…