Jason Furman
Professor of Practice at Harvard. Teaches Ec 10, some tweets might be educational. Also Senior Fellow @PIIE. Was Chair of President Obama's CEA.
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Revised a table for a talk I'm giving on Monday. Note all of these (except Atlanta Fed) are averaged over six months. I want to address a few points in a short thread: (1) was Nov...
The labor market eased in October as both job openings and quits fell (and unemployed rose, which we knew already). Overall there are now 1.7 job openings for every unemployed wor...
A few questions for people who don't believe in the Phillips curve or wage-price links: 1. Do interest rate increases lower inflation? If so, what is the mechanism? 2. If the eco...
I worry that a lot of people misapply what they learned (or mislearned) about economic efficiency and deadweight loss. It is a very useful concept--but also limited and can be misa...
Median PCE inflation rose 0.7% in August--which is an 8.2% annual rate or 6.9% ar for the last three months. These are considerably higher than core inflation. Median PCE drops ou...
Over the last year core PCE inflation (excluding food and energy) was 4.9%. Absent the Russian invasion of Ukraine it would have been about 4.9%. One useful gut check on this was...
Some real increase in personal consumption expenditures in August (+1.2% annual rate), undoing the August decline. Overall personal spending levels remain strong. Note PCE decline...
After a hiatus in July core PCE inflation snapped back to its third highest monthly value of this inflationary episode in August--0.6% or a 7.0% annual rate. Always better to smoo...
Today the BEA revised the last five years of GDP data. The revisions (fortunately) reduce some of the annoying discrepancies in the data but don't change the overall picture much....
Just checked the 10yr/10yr Treasury rate (ie, the markets forecast of the 10yr rate a decade from now). Is 4.33%. That is up 19bp in a day (largest 1 day increase in over a year)...
An updated and expanded breakdown of the supply and demand components of inflation from the @sffed's @adamshap5. His analysis is consistent with much of the excess *overall* inflat...
This type of standard distributional analysis always misses half of the impact on the policy. It shows the *direct* impact. The *indirect* impact is usually equal in magnitude (and...