Category Archives: Slow Recovery
Econ 1, Tiger Woods, and the Crisis@10
Today is the first day of the fall quarter at Stanford, and I begin teaching Economics 1, the introductory economics course, and the course after which this blog is named. The first day is always exciting, especially with many first-year … Continue reading
Stiglitz, Summers, Secular Stagnation, and the Supply Side
Joe Stiglitz recently published an attack, “The Myth of Secular Stagnation,” on Larry Summers’ hypothesis of secular stagnation, a revival of a term used by Alvin Hansen decades ago. Larry first presented his secular stagnation hypothesis at a conference jointly … Continue reading
Posted in Regulatory Policy, Slow Recovery, Stimulus Impact
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Happy New Decade!
The Great Recession began exactly one decade ago this month, as later determined by the NBER business cycle dating committee chaired by my colleague, Bob Hall. There is still a great debate about the causes of the Great Recession, its … Continue reading
Economic Policy Explains Growth Conundrum
“Growth Conundrum” sets the theme for the many fascinating articles in the latest issue of the IMF’s quarterly magazine Finance and Development which includes an opening essay by Nicholas Crafts and a profile of Kristin Forbes. I was asked to write … Continue reading
Posted in Regulatory Policy, Slow Recovery
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Restoring Prosperity
During the past two days, economists from around the world gathered at the Hoover Institution to focus on the crucial problem of how to restore prosperity. They took stock of lessons from past experiences in the US and Europe, and … Continue reading
Posted in Regulatory Policy, Slow Recovery
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Take Off the Muzzle and the Economy Will Roar
In his Saturday Wall Street Journal essay “Why the Economy Doesn’t Roar Anymore”—illustrated with a big lion with its mouth shut—Marc Levinson offers the answer that the “U.S. economy isn’t behaving badly. It is just being ordinary.” But there is … Continue reading
Desperately Needed: Reforms to Raise Productivity Growth
The data released this week on labor productivity growth are really terrible. The growth rate has been negative now for three quarters in a row, and it was – .4 percent over the past year. Unfortunately, these data are reinforcing … Continue reading
Economic Exasperation Continues
With today’s disappointing GDP release for the second quarter and downward revisions for the previous two quarters, the U.S. economy completes 7 years of economic expansion with a whimper. And with an average annual growth rate of only 2.1 percent … Continue reading
Posted in Slow Recovery
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Economic Exasperation
At the end of this quarter, according to most economists, the U.S. economy will have completed 7 years of so-called expansion (28 quarters from 2009Q3 to 2016Q2) with an anemic annual growth rate of 2 percent. I have been writing … Continue reading
Posted in Slow Recovery
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The Economic Hokum of Secular Stagnation Redux
Two years ago I published a piece in the Wall Street Journal titled The Economic Hokum of ‘Secular Stagnation.’ I wrote it after Larry Summers presented the secular stagnation view at a joint Brookings-Hoover conference. I argued that the bout … Continue reading
Posted in Slow Recovery
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Economics One 