Economics

This is just in from PIMCO's Paul McCulley, who seems to have caught on to the Wynne Godley sectoral balances approach to viewing the macro economy (hat tip Scott).  He says: Double-entry bookkeeping was a great invention. It is a…

I have argued that both fiscal and monetary stimulus would be withdrawn sooner than most people expected. Here's how I put it in March (emphasis added): I expect the following to occur: Public pressure to withdraw monetary and…

Great video detailing explanations for why the financial crisis happened. Big hat tip to the Pragmatic Capitalist. I like this first aspect of the video and I LOVE the drawings. Very cool. Of course, you know that you're going to get…

A post on the latest economics debates by Claus Vistesen Steve Waldman has a very good post this week about the folly about the austerity vs non-austerity discussion which seems to be going the rounds at the moment. In fact, it you take a…

While most people are tuned in to the failure of the ruling coalition in Germany to get their man Christian Wulff elected president, there are other more important numbers out today. Unemployment in Germany fell to 7.5% in the last month.…

I fully support deficit spending as a means to prevent a debt deflationary spiral in a deep downturn.  However, there are limits to what stimulus can actually do. Stimulus is no panacea for an unbalanced economy. In particular, when…

Blog post series, like the vuvuzela, is the new bacon; it works with everything and with John Hempton’s recent excellent series on the economics of default in the Eurozone and Edward Hugh’s recent postings on AFOE in which he pulls out…

By Michael Pettis. With the PBoC’s currency announcement last Saturday and the surge (!) in the value of RMB on Monday (all very kindly timed to add zest to my meetings this week in Boston, New York, and Washington), you would assume that…

It's not my position. But I would think someone would articulate it. It sounds like what Mark Thoma would advocate, for example. That is, someone could advocate: 1 A larger deficit in the short term. 2. Specific, clear…

This week I have decided to do the weekly review both as a links post and in narrative form.  I have already posted the links of the most-read articles (see them here). In this weekly review narrative, I want to discuss the…