I was thinking about North Dakota and the population shifts and changes of the the last few years. The economics of the state are so clearly connected to the population changes, which are clearly connected to the economic changes in the state too. There really is an intense and important feedback relationship between population and economics in this state in particular.
Continue reading North Dakota Population Change, Nature v. Nurture
Shameless self promotion alert. I am pleased to announce Intelligent Economist selected my blog as one of their top 100 economics blogs for 2018 (all the blogs selected can be found here). I will not lie, it is quite gratifying to receive this distinction again and it is nice that it multiple years in a row for multiple blogging awards. North Dakota is an interesting topic for a variety of reasons and I guess I am able to convey that. What I need to do is get some updated pictures out there though. Yeesh.
Continue reading Barter is Evil a 2018 Top 100 Econ Blog – Intelligent Economist
The economic definition of labor force is a bit different from the conventional view. The labor force is employed plus unemployed, who by definition are those without a job but looking for work. I bring this up to avoid any confusion with the variable actually being forecast.
Alright, we got the update from the city and it was not pleasant. Year-to-date collections are down more than 10%, and cities preferred measure (though we do not know why it is preferred) is down 6.87%. The forecast was for $1.35 million in collections and it came in at $1.02 million. So my pessimistic forecast was still too rosy. Based on this the updated forecast for May is revised down to $1.3 million.
Continue reading Grand Forks Sales Tax Forecast – April 2018