Economics, Climate and Macro; Books; Records; and Bikes
Over on Substack we've just published another note on the economic costs of climate change, this time looking at the impact of exceptional heat. In short it's bad for: growth, inflation, physical and mental health, swearing on social media and lots more... open.substack.com/pub/hybridec...
A great article about a great album. Mark Hollis' response to New York 'sandwiches' was utterly correct.
The Quietus'In limiting its value to where it led, we damn The Colour Of Spring with faint praise. Itself a vital manifesto, it’s always deserved its own raptures, and not just for familiar songs' Many Happy Returns to Talk Talk’s The Colour Of Spring, which turns 40 today! buff.ly/lh69Z5M
Genius move by Starmer. Correctly identifying that what the economy and electorate needs is more unimaginative technocratic neoliberalism.
Sam FreedmanInteresting appointment. Would be the most high-profile No 10 economic adviser in a very long time.
A literal and metaphorical bazooka
Sander TordoirMASSIVE FISCAL PACKAGE OUT OF BERLIN: 12-20%+ of GDP. - 500 billion fund for public investment - All defence spending above 1% of GDP not counted for debt brake. - Federal states can borrow 0.35% p.y. for investment. Germany is back - economically and militarily. 1/x
I'm a r*-sceptic. But if there is a 'neutral rate' then I think Soumaya's description of the Richmond Fed's estimate, having "statistical error bands the size of a bus... the lower bound is 1.4 per cent and upper bound is 3.6 per cent" might actually be the correct way to capture it. Great article.
Soumaya KeynesMy column this week for the @financialtimes.com is about the different ways we have of measuring r*. It's a bit mean of me to say that none of them are good - it's a really *really* hard thing to measure... www.ft.com/content/3c20...
Stephen is fantastic and well worth a follow on environmental economics, energy and causal inference matters.
Stephen JarvisYou spend ages thinking about how to overcome the political/permitting barriers to building new transmission lines and then some clever engineers come along and say "Why not just double existing capacity by using new upgraded wires...?" Cool new EI working paper haas.berkeley.edu/energy-insti...