Beyond Economics

Class Notes from Professor Kaulfuss

Links for 10/29

• Monetary Policy and Asset Bubbles (Neil Kashkari, 5/17)
• Potential Trump Pics for Fed Chair (The Hill)
• Q3 GDP Advance Estimate (BEA) / Calculated Risk / EconBrowser
• Q3 Charts and Commentary (Jared Bernstein)

Links for 10/25

• IMF DataMapper for GDP
• Global Growth Forecasts (10/18/2017)

Links for 10/21

• Open Market Operations vs. Quantitative Easing
• Shrinking the Fed’s Balance Sheet by Ben Bernanke (1/26/2017)
• Explaining Negative Interest Rates
• Interest on Reserves (IOR) / Required & Excess

Links for 10/19 (from John)

• U.S. Economy Overview & Outlook
• OECD U.S. 2017 & 2018 Outlook

Links for 10/17

• Is the Fed Setting Itself to Fail in the Next Recession?
• Has the Phillips Curve Gone Dormant?
• Yellen: The U.S. Economy and Monetary Policy

Links for 10/15

• Analysis of the Tightness of the Labor Market (10/2017)
  Suggest that we should be looking at “prime-age employment-to-population ratio” which is the share of the population ages 25 to 54 with a job.
• Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy Conference Presentations (10/2017)
• Rethinking Monetary Policy in a New Normal (Fed Governor Lael Brainard)
• The Great Depression vs. The Great Recession (Blanchard & Summers)

Links for 10/13

• Bloomberg Interview with Boston Fed President, Eric Rosengren (14 minutes)
  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-10-13/fed-s-rosengren-on-inflation-labor-market-wages-video
• Bloomberg Interview with Nouriel Roubini about global inflation (4 minutes)
  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-10-13/roubini-growth-and-low-inflation-a-global-question-video
• Calculated Risk on today’s inflation data with a great chart (article)
  http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2017/10/key-measures-show-inflation-mostly.html
• The Economist Magazine’s cover story on Asset Bubbles
  https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21730019-ultra-loose-monetary-policy-coming-end-it-best-tread-carefully-asset-prices-are
  https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21729988-low-interest-rates-have-made-more-or-less-all-investments-expensive-bubble-without-any-fizz

Current News/Videos

• Bill Gross of Janus blames US Fed for ‘fake markets’
• Recession Compared (Minneapolis Fed)
• Bloomberg Interview with Dan Tarullo (former Fed Governor) (9/27/17)
• Yellen comments on Fed’s inflation sentiment (9/26/17)
• The Economist: Balance Sheet unwinding graphs
• August Inflation Report
• Bloomberg: Interview with Ruchir Sharma on the Global Economy & Monetary Policy

September Employment Report

• First, it is important to note that there are 2 different surveys that are taken during a reference week within the month:
• Establishment: This is the Nonfarm Payrolls and wages increase/decrease, which is a sample of businesses and provides the headline number of net jobs added or lost. The number is revised twice in the two successive months as the original number is a smaller sample of businesses.
• Household: This survey is used to determine the unemployment rate and labor force participation, among other things. There are jobs added and lost within the data released but they don’t usually make the headlines like the nonfarm payrolls.
• The two surveys often convey the same trend, but not always, since the Household one includes self-employed and farm. Also, the Nonfarm Payrolls does not count those who had a job but did not work and were not paid due to the hurricanes, whereas the Household survey does count people as employed even if they did not work and were not paid due to weather.

Highlights for September Employment Report

• Nonfarm Payrolls: -33,000 attributed to 1.5 million unable to go to work due to the hurricanes. This would be expected to rebound in October. Net revisions to previous months were down.
• Household: Unemployment down to 4.2% and labor force participation rate up. In other words, the rate dropped for the right reasons, not because people gave up looking.
• Average Hourly Wages (based on Establishment Survey): This was up significantly (2.9% Year over Year). On the one hand this would imply that the inflation is returning and the Fed should go ahead and raise interest rates in December. On the other hand, over 100,000 low-wage restaurant and hospitality employees did not work due to the hurricanes, thus skewing the wage average upward for those who were counted.

Links for September Employment Report

• BLS Statement
  https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/jec_10062017.htm
• CalculatedRisk.com
  http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2017/10/september-employment-report-33000-jobs.html (basic charts)
  http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2017/10/comment-hurricane-impacted-employment.html (additional commentary)
• Bloomberg (video report)
  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-10-07/full-show-what-d-you-miss-10-06-video

General Fed Challenge Info

• Fed’s College Fed Challenge Page
• YouTube College Fed Challenge Search

MCC Presentations

• MCC Team Presentation 2016
• MCC Team Presentation 2015 (video) / PowerPoint
• MCC Team Presentation 2010
• MCC Team Presentation 2009
• MCC Team Presentation 2008 / NSCC Team Presentation 2008

MCC Fed Challenge 2016

MCC Fed Challenge 2015

MCC Fed Challenge 2010

MCC Fed Challenge National Champions 2009

MCC Fed Challenge National Champions 2008