Donal Curtin • Mar 11, 2015 •
Last week the Reserve Bank published the latest in its Analytical Note series, 'The Reserve Bank’s method of estimating “potential output”' (pdf here). If you're into macroeconomics in general or monetary policy in particular, you probably don't need your hand held about what potential output, and the output gap, are, but in case it's passed you by, the Note … Read More
James Zuccollo • Mar 03, 2015 •
Flipchart Rick has a post up about Andy Haldane’s speech the other day and, like all Haldane’s work, it’s witty and engaging so you should definitely read it. The subject is the recent slowdown in growth in the developed world and it illustrates how different views of the same data can lead to very different […] … Read More
James Zuccollo • Jan 21, 2015 •
Alberto Alesina has returned to the fray with a new paper that shows how tax rises are far more damaging than tax cuts. With a new dataset covering the recessionary years, this is the most up-to-date evidence on fiscal consolidation available. Importantly, they are unable to discern evidence that the ZLB caused the effects of […] … Read More
James Zuccollo • Jan 19, 2015 •
In a bizarre leader article The Economist praises microeconomists for their use of data to better predict people’s behaviour and recommend macroeconomists do the same: Macroeconomists are puritans, creating theoretical models before testing them against data. The new breed [of microeconomists] ignore the whiteboard, chucking numbers together and letting computers spot the patterns. And macroeconomists […] … Read More
Matt Nolan • Sep 30, 2014 •
Our Prime minister, John Key, has decided to say the following: Prime Minister John Key has indicated he thought the New Zealand dollar’s fair falue was around 65 USc and that it would be logical for the Reserve Bank to intervene to push the New Zealand dollar lower, given it was currently well above where […] … Read More
Donal Curtin • Aug 20, 2014 •
Here's a brilliant graph, from the Calculated Risk blog, an excellent site run by Bill McBride which mainly covers US macroeconomic developments. The graph came from this post, and I'm using it with Bill's permission.It's about the US labour market, an... Read More
James Zuccollo • Mar 10, 2014 •
I like the influence that physicists are having on economics. Moving towards agent-based modelling in some areas of the discipline is a great idea. But, in addition to lending their novel insights, some seem to enjoy piling on economics generally. Generally you have to take the good with the bad but Mark Buchanan’s latest article […] … Read More
Shamubeel Eaqub • Feb 26, 2014 •
Matt and I got talking about immigration off an earlier blog. He asked: “Could it be that Brisbane feels more at like home for people from the rural North Island and South Auckland than Southland or Auckland City do?” It got me thinking about why people migrate. I am currently reading “Exodus” by Paul Collier. […] … Read More
Matt Nolan • Feb 17, 2014 •
Excellent article over at Aeon (we linked to earlier in the week, but it deserves its own post), I’d suggest you head over and give it a read. To quote one passage: Kuznets lost the argument about measuring social welfare over economic activity back in the 1930s. Now it’s time to put these two concepts in […] … Read More
Bill Kaye-Blake • Jan 23, 2014 •
And so a new year begins. Okay, we’re almost a month in, but this is the week that New Zealand really comes back from summer holidays (and even now there are a few empty chairs in the office). That means it is time for looking ahead to what we can accomplish this year. Rod Oram, […] … Read More