The Bowtie Economist's Daily Dose of 70-Word Wisdom

For office workers, 5.6% of full-time and hybrid workers received a promotion in 2023, compared to 3.9% for fully remote employees, with no difference in promotion rates between hybrid and full-time. Relatedly, female software engineers at Fortune 500 firms who…

The Friday File: In 2019, The NFL generated revenues of $15.3 billion, Major Leage Baseball $10.7 billion, the NBA $8.8 billion, and the English Premier (Soccer) League $6.6 billion. These are the world’s four largest revenue generating professional leagues. However,…

Pre-Covid, shrink (a fancy word for retail store theft) was about $50 billion/year and 1.4% of retail sales. In 2021, shrink rose to $94 billion but declined to 1.4% of retail sales with less in-person shopping. Since then, it’s steadily…

For the year ending 11/23, construction spending totaled $2.05 trillion, 7.3% of GDP, and is up 11.3% Y-o-Y. Total private construction was $1.59 trillion, up 10% largely due to private manufacturing which totaled $209 billion, up from $131 billion Y-o-Y,…

Repeated Revisions Through November, 10 of 11 monthly employment reports have been revised down. In CY2008, a recession year, 11 were downwardly revised. Conversely in CY2021, a boom year, 11 were revised up. Two things are occurring. A strengthening economy…

With December job creation at a solid 216,000, unemployment unchanged at a low 3.7%, the labor force participation rate sinking to 62.5% from 62.8%, December wage growth up a disappointingly strong 0.44% and Y-o-Y growth too strong at 4.1%, this…

The Friday File: Previously it was believed that having more money made you happier, up to about $75,000/year. Recent research has overturned that thinking. Research now shows that if you are an unhappy person, happiness increases with income till about…

During November, 20 states experienced coincident economic growth with most of the remainder contracting, a few were flat. Since 1979, every time fewer than 23 states were expanding there’s been a recession. Worse, the number of growing states has been…

Of all FOMC votes cast during Paul Volker’s tenure as Chair of the Fed, 10.7% were dissenting. During the Greenspan years, the dissenting vote percentage fell to 4.8%. During Bernanke’s time as Head Fed, dissenting votes were 7%, and during…

2024 likely won’t be a year of great economic growth because fiscal policy will be increasingly contractionary, savings rates will necessarily stop falling, and bank lending and thus the money supply will continue contracting. Additionally, the interest rate insensitivity exhibited…