2019

By Will Abel, Silvana Tenreyro, and Gregory Thwaites This post first appeared on Vox. The growing prominence of giant companies in advanced economies has raised concerns about the increase in monopoly power (e.g. Eeckhout and de Loecker…

China's slowdown Let's start with China today because yesterday the Chinese released their worst growth figures in 28 years. The 6.4% growth number was expected. Even so, the problems are large. Here's how Reuters described it yesterday:…

The euro is “celebrating” its 20th anniversary this month, but they aren’t popping corks across the continent. The underlying assumption of a common currency—namely, that it would lead to a convergence of the member countries’ production,…

Analysts are increasingly skeptical that China’s very high reported GDP growth rate provides a meaningful picture of the economy’s health. There are, however, at least three very different ways that reported GDP can fail to reflect the…

A couple of things today. The default is no-deal, the base case is extension of article 50 I waited until the bust settled on the no-confidence vote before I decided to write again about Brexit. It was clear that the fear of Corbyn as PM…

It's coming down to the wire for British Prime Minister Theresa May now. Starting at about 1900 GMT, parliament is to vote on the Leave Agreement she secured from Brussels. Theresa May has been making last ditch attempts to win over MPs in…

Happy Monday! Let's take a break from all of the angst about Brexit, about the US shutdown, and slowing global growth and look at some overarching macro policy debates that are relevant to this economic cycle. I've put forward my own views…

Two issues I mentioned yesterday need some clarification. Trump will declare a state of emergency for the Wall The first is the shutdown. It's this quote that needs clarification: The longer the shutdown goes on, the more damage it will do.…

Today's daily post is going to a true daily, covering a wide range of market and political economy news. Forcing government to rule out no deal And I want to start with Brexit because I think this is one of the most pressing issues in the…

On today's market action Today saw the S&P 500 rise for the fourth straight day, the longest up-streak since September. And that puts us up 10% since Christmas Eve. Crude is rallying too , with WTI gaining almost 5% on the day to…