This blog post accompanies the SDPR Morning Macro segment that airs on Monday, April 15. Tax day, what better day to discuss tax policy? In principle, the objectives of tax policy include, for example, high standards of living, full employment, strong and robust economic growth and innovation, low rates of poverty, and strong environmental stewardship. […]

This blog post accompanies the SDPR Morning Macro segment that airs on Monday, April 8. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the foreign-exchange value of the United States dollar neared its highest levels of 2019 because of a strong employment report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: the economy added 196,000 […]

This blog post accompanies the SDPR Morning Macro segment that airs on Monday, April 1. On Friday, March 22, 2019, it happened: the yield curve inverted, its slope going from positive to negative.  As James Mackintosh for the Wall Street Journal reported, “The market’s most reliable recession indicator is finally flashing red.”  Nevertheless, the yield […]

This blog post accompanies the SDPR Morning Macro segment that airs on Monday, March 25. Several years ago, then-Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, quipped that monetary policy should be boring.  As it happens, making monetary policy boring is a lot tougher than we might think.  In the last year or so, and indeed […]

This blog post accompanies the SDPR Morning Macro segment that aired Monday, March 18. Last Friday, March 15, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported, “Over the month [of January], hires and separations were little changed at 5.8 million and 5.6 million, respectively.  Within separations, the quits rate was unchanged at 2.3 percent and the layoffs and discharges […]

This blog post accompanies the SDPR Morning Macro segment that aired Monday, March 11. In 1900, L. Frank Baum, a denizen, for a time, of Aberdeen, South Dakota, published, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a magnificent tale that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer made into an unforgettable cult classic.  As every child knows, the tale is actually a deeply informed treatise […]

This blog post accompanies the SDPR Morning Macro segment that aired Monday, March 4. Last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a unit of the U.S. Department of Commerce, reported that real gross domestic product (GDP) grew in the fourth quarter of 2018 by an annualized rate of 2.6 percent, less than the annualized rate of […]