2014

Canada reported dreadful December retail sales and somewhat stronger than expected price pressures in January. The main take away is that a more dovish line from the central bank when it meets on March 5 is likely avoided.

News links for 22 Feb 2014

Themes for today: Real economy deterioration in Argentina, Brazil and Turkey is evident. Ukraine may be isolated without contagion. US data continues to surprise to the downside. Eurozone data may surprise to the upside. Sweden may…

News links for 21 Feb 2014

So far the ECB has not responded to the disinflationary risks building in the euro area. Some Governing Council members dismissed the calls for action from numerous economists, referring to the analysts' reports as the "Anglo-Saxon"…

Falling activity rates are often blamed on the long-term unemployed giving up the quest for work. And indeed the US does have a long-term unemployment problem at the moment. Research by Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement…

As I mentioned last week, I am on a winter break. So I haven’t been able to post over the past several days. But I have been following the news flow and wanted to make a few comments on what I am seeing regarding the US.

News links for 20 Feb 2014

From Minsky’s earliest work, he adopted what became known as the “endogenous money” approach that was revived by Post Keynesians in the 1980s. It is useful to return to Krugman’s critique of Minsky to compare Minsky’s early view of banking…

The Russian economy is barely growing. The Russian central bank has no intention of supporting the ruble. We are also seeing some spillover from the Ukrainian mess.