capital investment

Some are expecting the latest surge in US home construction to lift economic growth. Even though it is indeed a positive development, construction however will have only a limited contribution to the GDP.

By Michael Pettis I recently “debated” twice with senior Chinese officials on the future prospects for China. In both cases they made the argument that Chinese growth rates were going to rise in the next few years and that the current deep…

By Michael Pettis Three weeks ago the Wall Street Journal published my OpEd piece about concern that China may try to make the rebalancing process less painful by allowing the RMB to depreciate. In the piece I argue that this isn’t as…

I was looking at Tim Duy's latest post on monetary policy and asking myself the same question he asks about normalizing the interest rate cycle. Here's what Tim wrote about getting off the zero bound: "it is perfectly reasonable to…

By Sober Look Credit Suisse has made an important point with respect to the Fed's purchases of MBS. As we know, a mortgage borrower is long an option to prepay. That means a mortgage lender is short this same prepayment option. Therefore a…

Here's a good essay from the St. Louis Fed, examining how effective 'permanent zero' rates are. As you know, I think permanent zero is toxic. Let's see what the St. Louis Fed is saying though. Since the late 1980s the Federal Open Market…

I want to highlight the end of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech at Jackson Hole yesterday because he reiterated something he has been saying for a while now - that the Fed will do more but it won't be able to save the day by itself. I…

In the short term rebalancing may increase the amount of global demand absorbed by China, but over the longer term it should reduce it. Rebalancing will inevitably result in falling prices for hard commodities, and so will hurt countries…

One thing Austrians harp on is the misallocation of resources caused by heavy handed and persistent interest rate market intervention. They are right that the industrial organization and the structure of investment capital priorities is…

I don’t want to be too glib here. I recognize that policymakers are in an extremely difficult position and that there is no longer any easy solution, but railing at the markets rather than trying to understand why they are doing what they…