Many times people asked me about the relative importance of the agriculture sector and the mining sector so I thought I would show some current data. Now the coal industry output remains almost the same over this time frame, so the oil sector is responsible for the growth. The data run from 2005Q1 to 2015Q3 and the lines display each sector as a share of total GDP (private and public sector).
There is a big deal about understanding the impacts of oil price changes on the state economy given the legislative session underway in Bismarck. I am obviously all for such efforts. To that end I have a few graphs to offer up. Let’s consider the share of the private industry component of North Dakota Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Here is a first picture to consider:
Thinking about fiscal policy dominates my time lately. Mostly my concern is with parsing the data in such a way to make sense of the various arguments out there about the proper course for fiscal policy. Recall that I doubt that anyone is willing to reduce spending by enough to balance the budget. So if we are to see balanced budgets at some point, the timing of that is a topic for another post, it seems likely to me that tax increases will be necessary. Anyway, those policy issues will be covered another day.
The GDP report for Q3 is out (available here) and it might seem good news. Q3 2013 growth is 2.8%, but it comes from inventory accumulation and that is not good. Firms added to inventories of goods which means they will need to produce less in Q4 so hiring may still be weak.
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.