Category Macro
Yield curve and uncovered interest rate parity update
As a follow-up to this post, here are the US and Canadian yield curves from March 2006 and December 2005. The slopes haven’t changed much, but the US curve has shifted up at a faster rate than the Canadian yield curve. This is part of a trend that goes back at least 12 months: The […]
Should we be thinking of the US as a small, open economy?
Kash and PGL at Angry Bear have a couple of recent posts challenging the proposition that reducing the rate at which income from capital is taxed will increase growth rates. I disagree with their conclusions, but I’m more intrigued by the fact that they – along with Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser and the Congressional Budget […]
Yes, we should be worrying about the US yield curve
Jim Hamilton at Econbrowser offers a useful summary of some of the issues surrounding the recent inversion of the yield curve in the US. In the past, whenever long-term interest rates have dipped below short-term interest rates, there’s been a better-than-decent chance that a recession would follow. Brad DeLong explains why: Usually an inverted yield […]
Does government size matter?
In today’s National Post, William Watson says ‘Voters deserve to know where parties stand on size of public sector’. I suppose that’s true, but I really don’t see why it matters much. Here’s a graph of various rich countries’ GDP per capita and social spending: I don’t see any obvious tradeoff there. Nor has the […]
The Canadian Macroeconomic Study Group meeting is this weekend
I’d like to go, but it’s a long way from Quebec City to Vancouver for a weekend conference. The programme looks interesting. Here are some papers that I wish I could see in person:
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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