Written by Bill Watkins Previously published January 19, 2016 at newgeography.com. Every now and then, something happens to cause California’s comfortable establishment to celebrate the state’s economy.  Recent budget surpluses and jobs data have provided several opportunities, never mind that these are hardly summary statistics.  They don’t tell the complete story. The celebrants conveniently ignore… Read more

What is the right amount of debt for a particular borrower? This depends on the borrower.  Are we talking about a corporation, a bank, a household, a government entity, or an investment fund?  At a very high level, it seems that some debt can be beneficial, while too much debt can be detrimental.  Sort of… Read more

At the ASSA economics conference on Sunday, I attended a session on the equilibrium real (inflation adjusted) interest rate.  This topic was being discussed in particular as a metric relating to sluggish U.S. economic growth since the Great Recession. First, some presenters documented empirically that real interest rates since 1860 has had episodes, some of… Read more