Forecasters have a poor reputation for predicting turning points into recessions. This column quantifies their ability to do so, and explores several reasons why both official and private forecasters may fail to call a recession before it happens.
Read more...One of the nicest stylised facts in applied economics is that if the Fed inverts the yield curve it will cause a recession. But how applicable is it?
Read more...If kleptocracy is a disease, Tunisia is in Stage 4. Its ruling family that controlled an impressive swathe of the economy. But what is sobering about the Tunisian case study is that an overthrow of the government has done little to reverse the concentration of wealth and power. Is that because Tunisia was so far gone, or is this native to kleptocracy, that once it becomes established, it is difficult to extirpate?
Read more...40 central banks have invested in yuan. Should the US be worried?
Read more...By Philip Pilkington, a writer and research assistant at Kingston University in London. You can follow him on Twitter @pilkingtonphil. Originally published at Fixing the Economists I’ve been asking myself that question rather a lot in the past two weeks. This is because I have had two separate commissions for pieces of writing that require […]
Read more...We all understand why Russia is waging economic war on the Ukraine, but why is Obama doing so?
Read more...Yves here. Two in a row! Enjoy latest entry in Michael Hudson’s Insider’s Economics Dictionary.
Read more...Yves here. This is the latest entry in Michael Hudson’s Insider’s Economics Dictionary. Enjoy!
Read more...Yves here. The best review so far on Thomas Piketty’s new book Capital in the Twentieth Century is by Jamie Galbraith, and we’ve featured it in Links. But the article itself is long and a bit wonky, so Pilkington’s recap is a useful distillation of Galbraith’s piece.
Read more...Yves here. This piece by Bill Black not only does a great job of kneecapping some typically poor MSM reporting, but it’s also valuable as a high-level overview of the insanity of European economic policies.
Read more...Why you should be skeptical when economists and policy-makers talk about the value of reducing uncertainty which is code for invoking the confidence fairy.
Read more...We participated in a Room for Debate forum at the New York Times, on the topic of “Was Marx Right?” Readers are likely to say, “But of course!” Yet Marx had such a large opus and his forecasts were so bold that any fair reading has to come to more nuanced conclusion.
Read more...Some people often ask why I complain about Krugman. “Hey Phil, Krugman is a good guy. He likes government spending. You like government spending. Therefore you must like Krugman,” says our budding young Socrates. Well, I’ll tell you why….
Read more...Yves here. This piece is heated, but looking at Cass Sunstein’s work does that to people.
Read more...In this Real News Network interview, George Irvin, research professor at the University of London takes a broad historical perspective to show how the rise of a low-wage, debt driven economy and the pressure to reduce the role of government have painted Anglo-Saxon capitalism in a corner.
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