Viewpoints

State personal incomes were wildly erratic in the 2020:Q4, with annual rates of growth ranging from South Dakota’s 16.7 percent to -16.1 percent in both Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. Two sharply divergent forces were at work: the [...]

The Federal Reserve members' updated projections at the March 16-17 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) paint an optimistic economic view and an unrealistic monetary policy picture. Policymakers now agree with private forecasters [...]

In many respects this year has started where last year left off. The daily news cycle is still dominated by stories about COVID-19 and about how governments are responding to its ebb and flow. A by now familiar pattern has established [...]

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 [...]