RBA: A Model of the Australian Housing Market

26th March, 2019

“We build an empirical model of the Australian housing market that quantifies interrelationships between construction, vacancies, rents and prices. We find that low interest rates (partly reflecting lower world long-term rates) explain much of the rapid growth in housing prices and construction over the past few years. Another demand factor, high immigration, also helps explain the tight housing market and rapid growth in rents in the late 2000s. A large part of the effect of interest rates on dwelling investment, and hence GDP, works through housing prices.”

External Link: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2019/2019-01.html

St Louis Fed: How Has Trade Affected U.S. Manufacturing Jobs?

09th January, 2019

‘Recent U.S. manufacturing job losses attributed to Chinese imports seem small compared with monthly turnover of the entire U.S. labor market, and the share of recent losses also seems small when looking at long-term declines in manufacturing employment.’

External Link: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2018/december/trade-affected-us-manufacturing-jobs?utm_source=BlogList&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=BlogAlert

US population growth hits 80-year low

09th January, 2019

‘While 2018 was a year of economic revival with historically low unemployment and rising wage growth, demographic indicators stand in contrast, seemingly ushering in an era of population growth stagnation.’

External Link: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/12/21/us-population-growth-hits-80-year-low-capping-off-a-year-of-demographic-stagnation/

BoJ: What Drives China’s Growth? Evidence from Micro-level Data

05th December, 2018

The linked Bank of Japan research paper discusses the sustainability of China’s rapid growth mainly based on the estimation of the corporate-level total factor productivity of Chinese listed firms.

External Link: http://www.boj.or.jp/en/research/wps_rev/wps_2018/wp18e19.htm/

The Great Telegraph Breakthrough of 1866

08th November, 2018

“The transatlantic telegraph cable amounted to the information revolution of the day, tying global markets together in unprecedented ways.”

External Link: https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2018/q2/economic_history?platform=hootsuite

RBA Speech: The Evolving Australian Labour Market

07th November, 2018

“The long-running trend towards more flexible work and the implications it might have for a monetary policymaker”.

External Link: https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2018/sp-so-2018-10-05.html

Planet Money – Episode 864: The Central (Bankers’) Question

07th November, 2018

“It used to be central bankers had a powerful lever to guide the pace of the economy: The ability to raise or lower interest rates…But lately, the lever hasn’t been behaving like the textbooks say it should.”

External Link: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/09/14/647979229/episode-864-the-central-bankers-question?utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=bufferef794&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

RBA: Does it pay to study economics?

08th October, 2018

The RBA has written an interesting analysis on the economics of studying economics.

External Link: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2018/sep/does-it-pay-to-study-economics.html

Older workers account for most of the US job growth since 2000

24th September, 2018

Blog article from the St. Louis Fed shows the composition of US job growth since 2000, with almost all of the growth since 2000 attributable to people over the age of 55.

External Link: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2018/september/staff-pick-older-workers-account-almost-all-job-growth-2000?utm_source=BlogList&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=BlogAlert

The spectacular power of Big Lens

24th September, 2018

A long article but it provides an interesting insight into the eyewear industry and the two dominant companies within it that are in the process of merging.

Essilor is a prescription lens business that manufactures a large share of the worlds prescription lenses and Luxottica is known by many consumers through its retail brand Sunglass Hut.

External Link: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/10/the-invisible-power-of-big-glasses-eyewear-industry-essilor-luxottica