The One Letter That Shows the Shape of the Economic Recovery

When we use the alphabet to describe an economy recovery from the coronavirus, rather than an “L” or a “V,” some economists now suggest a “K.”

How a Paper Jam is Like a Recession

Whether it’s the paper in your copier machine or the goods and services in a market economy, flows and jams can be rather similar.

Weekly Roundup: From Fed Humor to the Wisdom of Warren Buffett

Our Posts Roundup Sunday 3.01.15 Handy notes from Warren Buffett…more Monday 3.02.15 The basics of Greek tax evasion…more Tuesday 3.03.15 Insight about airline queues…more Wednesday 3.04.15 Why we subsidize Brazilian farmers…more Thursday 3.05.15 What an ATM can teach us…more  …

Weekly Roundup: From Marijuana to the Metric System

Our everyday economics include globalization, opportunity cost, inflation, employment, monetary policy, negative externalities, recession, business cycle.

The Reason That Recession Dates Matter

Asked to define a recession, you can give the mechanical answer. It is 2 or more adjacent quarters of a real GDP decline. So, if Q1 GDP grows by 3%, Q2 by 2% and then Q3 by 1%, is that…

One Reason to Quit A Job

Have you ever gone through a series of phone messages that finally take you to the department you need? Then, after 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15, no one picks up and you start to wonder if you should hang up. Deciding what…

The Monetary Policy Mistakes of a Babysitting Co-op

There once was a French economist whose name was Say. Proclaiming that “Supply Creates Its Own Demand,” Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832) entered economic history with Say’s Law. All he meant was that workers are also consumers. The money you receive for producing a good or a service…

Humor in Fed Transcripts

Below, just a reminder of one piece of the Great Recession before looking at the Fed transcripts. Lehman Brothers is the orange line.   With a typical 5-year lag, the transcripts of the 2008 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings…

Why Do Young Adults Live With Their Parents?

In Slovakia, Bulgaria, Greece, Malta and Italy, young people, age 25-34, live with their parents. But not in Denmark, Finland Sweden, and Norway. Below you can see the country stats: The Reasons Pew Research provided some insight about multigenerational U.S. households. In 2012, returning…

Which College Grads Have Unemployment Problems?

With a 6.7% unemployment rate and 74,000 jobs created for December, are you okay if you have a bachelor’s degree? I discovered some answers in a new paper from the NY Fed. Unemployment and underemployment for recent college graduates have been…