15 articles
That’s the title of a report by the Trump administration CEA earlier this month. It’s an interesting question whether this is the relevant question or not. What the CEA analysis does is to use the 2017 Input-Output tables to determine what the final goods pri…
Durables consumption has experienced extreme volatility over the last 9 months (since the election). However, services and nondurables should follow the permanent income hypothesis — at least halfway (DSGE’s usually incorporate about 50% hand-to-mouth consume…
Here are some of the most ridiculous (and tragic) events of 2025, in economic or economic policy terms. January: CEA designate Stephen Miran cobbles together a disjointed attempt at international finance, wherein exorbitant privilege is diminished, but US…
Democrats/Lean Democratic current conditions assessment is relative insensitive to Trump being president, and statistically significantly related to news sentiment. Republican/Lean Republican perception is overwhelmingly associated with whether Trump is presi…
From BLS: Figure 1: Price of Ground Beef (red, left scale), of Ground Coffee (brown, right scale), in $/lb., n.s.a. Orange dashed lines at discrete increases in tariff rates, green dashed line at discrete drop in tariff rates. Source: BLS, TPC Tariff Tracker.…
I see currently betting on US troops in Iran by April 30th at 70% (a high of 72% earlier today), with betting on maximum oil price in 2026 of $145/bbl. While the introduction of ground troops, at the levels of the 31st MEU plus 1500 from the 82nd airborne, …
Consider this graph, comparing the Administration’s forecast to the latest WSJ forecast, and an error correction model incorporating Census population forecast. Figure 1: Reported GDP (bold black), Administration’s forecast (red squares), WSJ April survey mea…
Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A shorter version was published in Project Syndicate. Thanks are due…
Lots of gushing praise by President Trump of President Xi. Not so much from Xi. I’d characterize this as anything but tough talk from the US side. As for deliverables from the summit: None confirmed from the Chinese side. Maybe purchase of 200 Boeing aircraft…
Friday’s jump in 10 year Treasury yields (10 bps), and the 30 year yield nearing 5% alarmed markets. But why? Debt and the debt trajectory are up. Fed Chair Designate Warsh wants to shrink the Fed balance sheet, even as Trump continues his assault on Fed inde…
One of the reasons why the impact of higher gasoline prices might be muted relative to the past is the increased fuel efficiency of US autos, in small part due to a higher share of electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles in the US fleet. It could’ve been larger…
Not quite the lowest odds ever, but pretty close; betting odds have retraced to just before “imminent”. Source: Kalshi, accessed 5/30/2026, 10PM CT.
Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A shorter version was published in Project Syndicate. May 31, 2026 …
From WisPolitics: “We’re going to come out and your fertilizer prices are going to go way down just like they were four months ago. Your fertilizer’s down, your energy’s down, your oil, your gas is all coming way down. And frankly, I thought it would go much …
Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A shorter version in Project Syndicate. June 22, 2026 — Adam Smith’s…