Tag Archives: recovery

GDP Reattains Pre-Recession Peak

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This morning the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its first estimate for 2011 GDP.   It showed national output for the first time surpassing the pre-recession peak, which occurred in the last quarter of 2007.    (See chart below)    The expansion in 2011 was led by autos, computers, and other manufactured goods.

Given that the economy hit its trough in mid-2009, the long slow climb since then has been disappointing.   The outcome turns out to have been worse than the conventional wisdom that sharp declines tend to be followed by sharp recoveries.   On the other hand, the outcome turns out to have been somewhat better than the Reinhart-Rogoff thesis that when the cause of a recession is a financial crisis, the recovery tends to take many years.   read more

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Barack Obama’s Biggest Economic Mistake Has Been…

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In the current issue of Foreign Policy, the editors of the FP Survey ask “top experts” for pithy solutions to the world’s economic problems, “twitter style.”  Some of the answers:

THE BIGGEST THREAT TO THE GLOBAL ECONOMY IS …
Anti-market bias. -Bryan Caplan •  Procrastination. -Peter Diamond •  Short-term thinking. -Esther Dyson •  A euro meltdown. -Dean Baker  •  Tax-cut fanatics. -Jeffrey Frankel •  The bond market. -Andy Sumner •

MY OUT-OF-THE-BOX SUGGESTION TO REVIVE THE GLOBAL ECONOMY IS
Wipe out debts. -Daron Acemoglu •  Require candidates for national office to pass ninth-grade tests on arithmetic, history, and geography. -Jeffrey Frankel •  Double down on science. -Tyler Cowen•  A government lottery where winners have mortgages, student loans, or other debt paid off. -Mark Thoma •  We don’t need “out-of-the-box” solutions; we need “head-out-of-the-sand” ones. -Adam Hersh •  Pray. -David Smick read more

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NBER Eggheads Finally Proclaim End of Recession

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              The NBER‘s Business Cycle Dating Committee, of which I am a member, announced this morning that June 2009 was the trough of the recession that began in December 2007.    It was the longest recession since the 1930s.

              It is the fate of the Committee to be teased mercilessly every time we make one of our formal declarations of a turning point in the economy.   We get it from both directions:    We waited too late to call the end of the recession, or we did it too early.     (Occasionally someone makes both criticisms simultaneously!)   Even The Daily Show got in on the fun this time. read more

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