Category Archives: Slow Recovery

Earlier this year the CBO Budget and Economic Outlook (p 36-37) pointed out that much of recent decline in the national unemployment rate has been due to an unusually large decline in the labor force participation rate. Of course, people … Continue reading →

The view that the current U.S. recovery is unusually weak compared to past U.S. recoveries from recessions with financial crises is gaining more and more support. Economists David Papell and Ruxandra Prodan in an article posted on Jim Hamilton and … Continue reading →

Paul Krugman disagrees with my recent post that the recovery is weak compared to recoveries from past serious U.S. recessions including those associated with financial crises. I’ve been writing about the reasons for weak recovery for two years, but the … Continue reading →

The weak recovery continues to be a major topic. Over the weekend, Russ Roberts issued the second episode of his three part “chartcast” series on the topic, which is based on interviews with me and builds on his highly-regarded podcast series, … Continue reading →

People are looking for answers to why the economy is growing so slowly. Is the answer that economic growth is normally weak following deep recessions and financial crises, as, for example, Kenneth Arrow argued in the presidential election event with me this week … Continue reading →

Twenty years ago this month my colleague Bob Hall and I wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about how “in recent months press reporting about the economy has become so pessimistic that it has completely lost touch with … Continue reading →

As many have observed the employment report for August released today was disappointing news, but it really is a continuation of a steady stream of bad employment news that has been the story of this recovery since its beginning. The … Continue reading →

A year ago, when the economic recovery had already been delayed two years, Lee Ohanain and I got the idea for a book on the role policy in the delay.  To make the idea operational we invited people who were working on … Continue reading →

I have been regularly charting the path of real GDP and employment during the recovery from the recession as new data are released. From the start it was clear that the recovery was very weak. By its second anniversary the … Continue reading →

As the 2012 campaign season gains steam we are beginning to hear the same economic claims we heard two years ago during the mid-term election. In 2010 much of the debate was about (1) whether the 2009 stimulus package was … Continue reading →