Viewpoints

Once again, household portfolios are oversized and unbalanced, driven higher by a massive gain in a single asset (equities). Unbalanced portfolios have proven to be vulnerable to abrupt and sharp corrections. Will history repeat? The [...]

The understatement of housing inflation in the consumer price index has reached a new milestone. As reported, the gap between the actual change in house prices and owners' rent, as published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), [...]

Financial markets have clearly become much more unsettled in recent weeks. Growing concerns about inflation risks and how Central Banks might respond to prospective price pressures seem to be top of the worry list. And rising long- [...]

A super-fast rise in commodity prices is underway. It should not be a surprise that as the world economy re-opens, commodity prices start to rise to reflect more robust demand conditions. But what has been surprising is the speed and [...]

Starting March 1, The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RNZ) will consider the impact on housing prices when it debates monetary policy decisions. In doing so, RNZ becomes the first central bank to acknowledge that monetary policy [...]

Recently, I shared my concerns about price mismeasurement for owner-occupied housing with a senior official who works in the Division of Consumer Prices at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The senior official agreed with me, [...]

The performance of the world economy in coming months remains hostage to a number of factors but the evolution of the COVID-19 virus is the most important. As we discuss below, however, recent evidence on the virus front has been very [...]

Some positive trends Amidst the daily barrage of bad news stories that pervade the international media, a number of positive trends have unfolded in recent weeks. For example: • At the global level there has been a sharp retreat in [...]