One of the more common questions I get, from students, people at the store, on the radio, is: how would the U.S. economy would perform if it was more like North Dakota? It is a natural question given the strong performance in North Dakota and the weaker performance in the U.S. At some level this makes the comparison of growth a bit more consistent because the distribution of activity is made identical between multiple regions. In demography/population analysis (a class I am teaching this summer) the process is called standardization. It is essentially the same idea as calculating real gross domestic product with base year prices to control for the effects of price changes on growth. So lets take a look at unemployment and real GDP for the US, MN, and ND.
The Beige Book for May
For those that do not know, this is the name of the Fed’s regional condition summary (available here). The Ninth District summary (which includes North Dakota) concludes that economic performance is mixed. Strength came from manufacturing, energy and mining, consumers, and a few others. The weaker sectors included construction, farming and real estate.
A little labor force quiz
I am trying out something new on the website. Here is a little quiz about North Dakota labor force data.
Where is ND labor force growing?
Time to bore the readers with numbers. I was on Al-Jazeera in America last week talking with Ali Velshi regarding North Dakota’s energy sector. I have to admit that a live television interview was really exciting. Let’s get on with the numbers though.
The Housing Hydra
Housing is a common topic of discussion in Grand Forks. Many questions surround the topic, too many in fact. As a frequent contributor to the Jarrod Thomas program (1310 AM Grand Forks), I receive a fair share of these questions. For every question I answer, or attempt to answer, it seems like two take its place. All this because, as I maintained throughout these last few years, we are not asking appropriately defined questions.