Comments for Reports from the Economic Front

Comment on No Real Recovery In Sight by m

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:05:53 +0000

I was just wondering, as an expert on the Chinese economy, how do you see the situation in China? the unbroken growth pattern displayed by the Chinese economy looks quite incredible in light of the collapse of demand for its exports and the very high export dependence of that country. Do you think that Chinese growth is sustainable or is it rather a credit/state spending bubble what we have seen in China in the last year or so, that is about to crash soon?

Thank you for your answer.

Comment on Whose Recovery? by Cliff Bekar

Cliff Bekar — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:40:14 +0000

As the last post to “Reports” made clear, the recession has not yet been declared over. I wonder why this is posed as who is benefiting from the “recovery?” Would we not expect, in the (potentially) latter stages of a recession for wage gains to be weak (or even negative). I wonder what has happened to real wages?

Another interpretation: we have leading indicators (productivity, stock prices) showing signs that the recession may be ending and a lagging indicator (wages adjusted for productivity) trailing behind. If this is in fact what is happening we would want to be careful not to generalize about how the gains from growth after the recession will be distributed. This is doubly true given all the policy shocks that have occurred (like the bailout).

Comment on The Myth of US Superiority by Cliff Bekar

Cliff Bekar — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:30:37 +0000

I find most of these statistics convincing and illustrative of the argument being made. Two seem not a good fit: hours worked and preference for hours worked.

Any country that has relatively low marginal tax rates (and relatively less progressive tax rate structures) is going to see more hours worked. And an implication of this very simple application of the law of supply is that the % of people working long hours will be happy doing so.