CERF Blog

At CNN’s request, California Lutheran University released its February jobs forecast today. The actual data will come out Friday. The weakness in jobs persists: the federal government’s net hiring is expected to be close to zero and state/local government’s net hiring is expected to be negative due to a lack of revenues, non-decreasing expenditures, and… Read more

Paul Krugman really doesn’t like the possibility that there is a structural shift in employment, because it weakens the argument for the massive Keynesian spending spree he’d like to see the government initiate.  To that end, he published this piece on his blog February 13th. Before we go on, some readers may wonder what a… Read more

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released their Employment Situation report for January today. The household survey data indicate a fall in the unemployment rate, however, this appears to be as much due to updated population controls as much as any other factor. As well, we have to wonder if declines in labor force indicate that… Read more

The recent GDP release for 2010 quarter 4 got me to thinking about consumption and investment. Consumption growth was very strong, especially considering the still high level of mortgage and revolving credit debt in the United States economy. I show three charts below: real consumption, real business fixed investment, and consumption’s percent share of GDP.… Read more

Mary Hanley and Dan Hamilton The January 25, 2011 DataQuick press release shows that both foreclosures and notices of defaults have fallen almost everywhere in California. Statewide foreclosures have fallen 21.9% from last quarter and more than 30% from the fourth quarter of 2009. The large drop in foreclosures may indicate lenders’ hesitancy to take… Read more

The BEA released their first estimate of United States 2010 quarter 4 GDP this morning. The economy grew at 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter which is an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 2.6 percent. The acceleration in growth was primarily driven by consumption growth, fixed investment, and declines in imports. Imports are a subtraction… Read more

I heard John Taylor, a respected Macroeconomist with an extensive academic research record and lots of actual public policy experience, speak on Friday. The full text of Professor Taylor’s speech is here. Flanked by a large number of distinguished economists, he spoke about monetary and fiscal policy, making a distinction between rules-based policy and discretion-based… Read more

Written January 6, 2011 The Allied Social Science Associations meetings are currently being held in Denver. These meetings are the largest set of Economics meetings on the planet. At 2:30pm today, I had 65 different sessions to choose from! And there are a similar plethora of sessions to choose from at nine different time-slots, three… Read more

Recent Retail Sales data, October and November, have been relatively strong for an economy that is barely recovering from the Great Recession. Recent personal consumption expenditures, the national account data that is much broader than Retail Sales, surprised me with a strong growth rate of 2.8 percent per annum during quarter 3. I have blogged… Read more

A lot of state governments are in trouble, afflicted as they are with high expenses and weak revenues. They need to be thinking clearly if they are to have any hope of solving their problems. Unfortunately, lots of fuzzy thinking occurs when it comes to taxes. The biggest problem is that many people think that… Read more

The Federal Reserve released its third quarter Flow of Funds report, which includes measures of debt accumulation and household sector wealth. This data is fundamental to the applied New Classical macroeconomist as wealth is believed to be a key driver of consumption. United States households continued to rebuild their balance sheets during the third quarter.… Read more

People who know me know that I’m a big supporter of increased immigration.  A surge of new educated immigrants would create an economic boom, solve our housing issues, and reinvigorate our cities.  Actually, I’d go one better than that.  I’d let anyone in who wanted to come, and I’d have them sign a large note,… Read more

The Labor Department’s jobs report for November indicates that job growth has slowed and unemployment has risen from October. We had forecasted a gain of 50 thousand jobs and a steady unemployment rate. The actuals were a gain of 39 thousand jobs and a rise in the unemployment rate from 9.6 percent to 9.8 percent.… Read more

The BEA’s second estimate of United States third quarter economic growth was released this morning. The revision from the first estimate of 2.0 percent growth was an increase of half a percent to 2.5 percent growth. The revisions were primarily the result of upward revisions to personal consumption expenditures, exports, and state/local government spending. The… Read more

Daryl G. Jones has a piece in Fortune titled Why the housing bulls are wrong.  He’s correct about the housing bulls being wrong, but his reasons aren’t all that convincing to me.  Here’s the reason housing won’t see a robust recovery for a couple of years:  The home ownership rate (percentage of people who own… Read more