Recent data releases show that inflation remains well contained. In fact, by one key measure, inflation is at a historical low, causing increasing concern about deflation. From the March Consumer Price Index press release we see that first quarter overall price levels have grown about 2.3 percent from 2009 quarter 1. This measure includes energy… Read more

United States Gross Domestic Product expanded at a 3.2 percent pace in quarter one of 2010, according to the preliminary estimate released today. This was very close to our forecast of 3.1 percent. This expansion was the result of 3.6% growth in personal consumption expenditures and a $50 billion increase in real private inventory spending,… Read more

New durables-manufactured goods orders fell 1.3 percent in March, but excluding transportation, orders rose 2.8 percent. The overall drop was driven by a large decline in aircraft orders. The aircraft orders are volatile and not driven as much by overall economic trends. These results are consistent with our March forecast where we projected relatively strong… Read more

Dan Hamilton and Kjersti Framnes The California March unemployment rate increased to 12.6 percent from 12.5 percent in February. Since August of 2009 the unemployment rate has climbed 60 basis points, and there has not been any interim month of recovery. The unemployment rate would likely be even greater if not for net domestic out-migration.… Read more

United States retail sales data through February show that while the last three months have been positive they have not in fact been inspiring at all. We see that the volatility in total sales was driven by the motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts market during August, September, and October of 2009. I attribute this… Read more

Corporate bond spreads are returning to normal levels. The first chart below shows that the monthly spread between Baa bonds and Aaa bonds are close to what they were back in 2007 before the 2008 crisis. This is good because the rate on Baa bonds is declining. This indicates that the perceived risk in lower… Read more

We released our new United States and California forecasts today. As we note in our publication, available online HERE, we are pessimistic relative to consensus, particularly for 2010 quarters 2, 3, and 4. It appears that we see the negatives continuing longer than our forecasting colleagues at UCLA and across the nation. These negatives include… Read more

Some countries do not follow Milton Friedman’s freely floating exchange rate advice (see my recent blog). Instead, they peg their currency to the U.S. dollar. Sometimes they have logical reasons for doing so.  Usually, this is because their financial markets and banking systems are not yet developed enough to allow the hedging needed by enterprises… Read more

It has been 57 years since Milton Friedman wrote his paper “The Case for Flexible Exchange Rates” where he argued that the benefits from a market economy and a free trade system would be enhanced by flexible exchange rates. This implied a freely floating dollar, whose value was to be determined by the buying and… Read more

The February United States jobs report sent the equity markets up this morning while respected commentators like Edmund Phelps, (Columbia, Economics Nobel in 2006), remark that they worry that the “recovery” might not have legs. It always a bit odd to discuss growth that is less negative but that is the situation we are in… Read more