The official release of the advance estimate of Q2 GDP today was actually greeted with a sigh of relief. What does it say about the economy when at 1.7% rate generates relief? The relief of course is because it is not worse, but this number is subject to significant revision and so it may only be a temporary stay. I get asked on the radio all the time about economic recovery. The answer remains the same: there is recovery, but it is wholly inadequate to make people “feel” like recovery has taken hold.

Continue reading GDP growth is cause for concern

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The Census Bureau released a paper (citation below, link here) attempting a correction of sorts for the poverty level in counties and cities with a university. Specifically, the paper looks at the poverty rates with and without college students living without their families and off campus. What they find is a significant difference for some communities. That is, for some of the communities, when you exclude these students you get a significantly lower poverty rate. This is not too surprising really when you consider the rationale for many attending college is to increase their lifetime income. Continue reading College Students & Local Area Poverty Rates

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The Wall Street Journal did an analysis of comments by Federal Reserve members and judged the accuracy (article). “Hawks” are thought to be more aggressive anti-inflation policy authorities than “Doves”. I find it interesting that they go so far as to judge a winner in this situation. Long run outcomes are still not known and would be an important part of scoring who was “right”. But there are a few other issues here as well.

Continue reading Dove v. Hawk

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Before the data is released I felt it important to get my take on GDP revisions out there. There will be the standard outcries about political manipulation of the numbers and this is really not the intent, nor the outcome, of this process. This article from Bloomberg.com explains the process a bit. This article does a little better (especially on the R&D front and it mentions economic history). The U.S. economy is dynamic and constantly changing. We can call it innovation or entrepreneurship or development, but at its root it is change. Change in the products and services made and changes in the processes used to make them. These changes require us to change how we account for different aspects of the economy over time.

Continue reading Recalculating GDP

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The Weather Channel had a report on this week about circumstances on the eastern seaboard after SuperStorm Sandy. My students in Forecasting and Demography classes hear this information from me all the time. Look at any natural disaster, widespread blackout or other major event, and then take a look starting eight months later and you will notice an uptick in births. In fact, you can see this ahead of time if you pay attention to the OB-GYN visits. People are creatures of habit, and it sounds corny, but in times of crisis they look for comfort.

Continue reading After the Crisis, the Baby Boom

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