Interview with Ellen McGrattan: Business Cycles and Intangible Capital
Interview with Ellen McGrattan, a leading macroeconomist at the Richmond Fed, highlights her adoption of the Kydland‑Prescott model‑data matching approach to study business cycles and total factor productivity. She explains how intangibles—customer lists, trademarks, recipes—are omitted from balance sheets, creating a hidden component of TFP that drives much of the measured productivity puzzle. McGrattan also shares advice for graduate students, urging them to start with original research questions rather than existing data sets. The discussion underscores the need for better measurement of intangible capital to improve macroeconomic analysis and policy.
The Austin Experience: More Housing, Lower Rents
Austin added roughly 120,000 housing units between 2015 and 2024, expanding its stock by 30% and outpacing the national growth rate. The city’s zoning changes, faster permitting and a $250 million affordable‑housing bond spurred large‑apartment construction near jobs and transit. As...
North Korea’s Economy: How to Study a Data Black Hole
North Korea’s economy remains a statistical black hole, with the South Korean central bank estimating a 2024 GDP of roughly $26 billion—about $1,000 per capita. Researchers Haggard, Kim and Lee outline a forensic‑economics toolkit that leverages satellite night‑lights, mirror trade data,...
How Federal Spending Is Distributed to the Elderly, Working Age, and Children
Kent Smetters’ Penn Wharton analysis re‑allocates the 2025 U.S. federal budget by age group, revealing $2.7 trillion directed to the elderly, $1.2 trillion to working‑age adults, and $448 billion to people under 26. The remaining $2.6 trillion covers all‑ages programs such as defense, net...
India and Its Service Sector
The Economic Survey 2025‑26 underscores that India’s services sector now accounts for more than half of gross value added and drives the bulk of export growth, posting a 9.4% compounded annual growth rate versus 6.4% for merchandise. India has become...
The Flaws of Overconfident AI
Leading mathematician Terence Tao warned that current AI tools habitually present answers with unwarranted certainty, offering no reliable confidence scores. He and economist David Autor argue that the industry’s push for fully autonomous, button‑press workflows ignores the need for interactive...
Bending the Curve of Health Care Costs (At Last?)
Health care spending in the U.S. rose from about 5% of GDP in 1960 to 17% in 2010, then slowed markedly after 2010. Cutler and Klarnet attribute the slowdown to five factors—cost‑saving technology (≈21%), reduced demand (10‑26%), supply‑side price reductions...
Interview with Erika McEntarfer: Firings and Federal Statistics
Erika McEntarfer, former Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, was abruptly dismissed by President Trump on August 1, 2025. She recounts a chaotic termination day and a prior encounter with the Department of Government Efficiency, which proposed replacing statisticians with...
Canada’s Economic Challenges
The IMF’s 2025 Article IV report highlights Canada’s dual challenge: external uncertainty from shifting U.S. tariff policy under former President Trump and deep‑seated internal productivity weaknesses. Output per hour is about 30 percent lower than the United States, with the gap widening...
When Fiscal and Monetary Policy Row Together–And Not
Christina Romer’s new paper reviews historic episodes where fiscal and monetary policy moved in tandem, showing that coordination only helps when both tools aim at the right goal. The Great Depression, 1970s stagflation, Volcker’s anti‑inflation campaign, and the 1990s deficit‑reduction...
The Marketplace Exchanges for Health Insurance
The ACA’s state‑run health‑insurance marketplaces, which require essential benefits and sort plans into Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze tiers, covered about 10 million people before COVID‑19. A 2021 expansion of premium tax credits more than doubled enrollment to 23 million and pushed...
Fiscal Rules in Emerging Market Economies
The World Bank’s January 2026 Global Economic Prospects report finds that more than half of emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) now operate under at least one fiscal rule, up from roughly 15 % in 2000. Fiscal rules are linked to medium‑term...
When Rubber Was the Critical Imported Good
At the outset of World War II, the United States relied almost entirely on imported natural rubber, which supplied roughly 70 percent of tire production. When Japan cut off shipments in April 1942, the country faced a crippling rubber famine that limited military...
Did Negative Interest Rates Work ?
The article reviews evidence that central banks which pushed policy rates slightly below zero—most notably in the euro area, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and Japan—generated additional economic stimulus without triggering major disruptions. Empirical observations show that corporate deposit and wholesale funding...
Effective Taxes on Carbon: An International View
The OECD’s "Effective Carbon Rates 2025" report surveys 79 countries and compares three carbon‑pricing tools: fuel taxes, explicit carbon taxes, and emissions‑trading systems. By weighting tax level against the share of emissions covered, the analysis shows fuel taxes remain the...