Monthly Archives: April 2013

(Originally published here.) Before Peter Jackson chose to film the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” films in his native land, New Zealand was mostly known as the small country next to Australia. Its main exports are milk and meat … Continue reading →

(Originally published here.) Although low interest rates haven’t conquered unemployment in the rich world, they’re having a big impact elsewhere. Junk spreads are exceptionally low and the issuance of bonds with weak underwriting standards has soared. Yield-starved investors are gobbling … Continue reading →

(Originally published here.) Forecasters had been expecting the U.S. economy to grow at an annualized rate of 3 percent in the first three months of 2013. The advance estimate released this morning by the Bureau of Economic Analysis was therefore disappointing — … Continue reading →

(Originally published here.) One of the most basic functions of a financial system is that it allows people to smooth their consumption spending over time. The oldest example of this is probably when Josephadvised the Pharaoh to store the surplus from … Continue reading →

(Originally published here.) Some Democrats and public pension funds have recently been pressing the Securities and Exchange Commission to adopt rules requiring publicly traded companies to report their political spending. (A petition was first filed in August 2011 by a group of law professors.) … Continue reading →

(Originally published here.) Yesterday, Nayarana Kocherlakota, the president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, gave a speech in which he said that the Fed “will only be able to achieve its congressionally mandated objectives by following policies that result in signs of … Continue reading →

(Originally published here.) Americans have been whipsawed by devastating cycles of boom and bust over the past three decades. Now some at the Fed want us to go through it again. The excesses of the 1980s — leveraged buyouts, the … Continue reading →

(Originally published here.) Until yesterday, politicians who wanted to raise taxes and cut government spending frequently cited a 2010 paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff called “Growth in a Time of Debt.” The paper implied that high public indebtedness … Continue reading →

(Originally published here.) The U.S. Treasury on Friday issued a warning to Japanese policymakers “to refrain from competitive devaluation and targeting its exchange rate for competitive purposes.” The warning was prompted by the Bank of Japan’s commitment to a new … Continue reading →

(Originally published here.) The most recent data suggest that the U.S. economy may be slowing again. It remains to be seen whether this is a temporary phenomenon, a predictable consequence of the tax increases and spending cuts imposed earlier in … Continue reading →