The Unassuming Economist

Davide Furceri presented our joint work (with Daniel Leigh and Larry Ball) on the impacts of fiscal consolidation–sometimes referred to in the blogosphere as ‘austerity’–at a G-20 seminar in Buenos Aires. See the presentation and prepared text of the talk.

The IMF, Dallas Fed, and the JMCB are holding a conference on “Housing, Stability and the Macroeconomy: International Perspectives”. The program is available here. Stijn Claessens’s presentation gives an excellent overview of the state of the housing markets and policy issues.

At Rice University today, continuing my mission to keep Okun’s Law alive. Art Okun must be smiling down on me. See the presentation here.

“Brazil’s house prices rose substantially over the last few years, especially in two major cities (Figure 1). The national FIPE–Zap index has increased 62 percent from August 2010 to April 2013. It rose 26 and 14 percent in 2011 and 2012 respectively, while construction costs did not rise in tandem. The prices for Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have almost tripled since January 2009, and grew by 30 and 15 percent in 2011 and 2012. Brazil was one of two countries that showed the highest real house price appreciation in 2011 among 52 advanced and emerging market economies,” according to a new report from the IMF.

My VoxEU post with Olivier Blanchard and Florence Jaumotte tries to move beyond ritual invocation of the mantra of “labor market flexibility.” We develop the concepts of “micro” and “macro flexibility”; explain why they are needed; what labor market institutions help or hinder micro and macro flexibility; and assess IMF advice against the backdrop of these concepts. The Staff Discussion Note on which our post is based is available here.