The Unassuming Economist

A new IMF note on Malaysia’s housing market points out that:

• “The high growth in housing prices over the past two years cannot be easily attributed to the factors that, historically, have explained developments in house prices (…) the growth rate in house prices displays a structural break in 2010.”

• “In particular, the behavior of residential loans does not seem to contribute to the recent dynamics of house prices.”

The sales of Piketty’s book threaten to put him into the top 1% of earners. On tax day in the US, Piketty presented his book the IMF Book Forum (and Jobs & Growth Seminar). The event was chaired by George Akerlof and Martin Ravallion was the discussant. Here are the links to the slides by Ravallion and Piketty.

Piketty said “we live in a world where we have to rely on Forbes to know the wealth of billionaires. I would prefer to get these statistics from the IMF but apparently there isn’t a publication on the distribution on income. Perhaps one day there will be.”

Forecasters have a poor reputation for predicting recessions. This Vox column quantifies their ability to do so, and explores several reasons why both official and private forecasters may fail to call a recession before it happens.

My profile of one of my thesis advisors, Robert Barro, for whom the LSE held a major conference last week. Of all the profiles I’ve written I like this the best — I think I knew the subject matter well and it shows.