Shadow Fed Chair — and Powell’s nuclear option to counter it
President Trump's plan to install a "Shadow Chair" months before Jerome Powell's term ends will definitely reshape US monetary policy — but it could face a surprising challenge from Powell himself.
IMF Growth Projections and Overfitting in Judgment-based Economic Forecasts
In a recent IMF working paper "Overfitting in Judgment-based Economic Forecasts: The Case of IMF Growth Projections", economist Klaus-Peter Hellwig examined IMF's World Economic Forecasts (WEO) and check if the forecast model suffer from the problem of overfitting.
Hong Kong dollar amid ‘Asian Financial Crisis in reverse’ — basic explainer
An explainer on how Hong Kong Linked Exchange Rate System works, what Aggregate Balance is, and how interest rate arbitrage help maintains Linked Exchange Rate System.
How to make US inflation chart by pulling data from BLS API with Python
An important question is how do we get the series IDs for the data you need. The short answer is through BLS's Data Finder
Where are the endpoints of QT? Ample Reserve System vs Demand-driven Floor System
Quantitative tightening (QT)—a process central banks use to reverse years of liquidity creation from quantitative easing (QE)—is concluding in many advanced economies. The central banks are growing confident that reserve levels in their financial systems are nearing their endpoints.
Where are the endpoints of QT and what come next?
BIS’s latest hunt for Zombie (firms)
In the latest BIS Quarterly Review, researchers Ryan Banerjee and Boris Hofmann consolidated some of the earlier research to illustrate the problem of zombie firms. They argued that the rise of zombies predated the 2008 financial crisis, and has since been dragging down the productivity of the real economy.
Nonbank Lending
In their recent working paper "Nonbank Lending", economists Sergey Chernenko, Isil Erel, and Robert Prilmeier provided an insightful overview of the sources and terms of private debt financing during the post-crisis period.
A Pitfall of Global Economic Policy Uncertainty Index
In recent months, the Global Economic Policy Uncertainty index has risen to a level much higher than periods around the 911 Terrorist Attack or the 2008 Financial Crisis, hence the conclusion that the economic policy is unprecedently uncertain now.
But here is why you might not have to worry.
The repo spike is not liquidity crisis; it is a crisis for Fed’s floor...
The floor system needs a cap on top of it. The sooner the Fed realizes it, the better they will be prepared for the coming financial turmoil.
Blanchard’s “Policy Model” v “Theory Model”
Back in November last year, Professor Olivier Blanchard discussed with me about his view that there should be four types of macroeconomics, and "theory...
