Economy
-
Fertilizer Prices in Context
A food crisis in the making. Graph from CSIS, “The Strait of Hormuz in 8 Charts” (22 April 2026). Source…
Read More » -
The Oil Shock in East Asia
From the IMF’s Asia Pacific Department, a blog “Asia’s Economic Resilience Is Being Tested by the Energy Shock”, two tables…
Read More » -
Five Year Inflation Expectations, April 22
Inflation break-even as of today: 2.61% Figure 1: 5 year Treasury-TIPS spread (blue), expected 5 year inflation from DKW (red), both…
Read More » -
Retail Sales Surprise and Alternative Business Cycle Indicators
Nominal retail sales grew 1.7% m/m, above Bloomberg consensus of 1.4%. With the advance release of sales, and coincident index from…
Read More » -
Today’s TACO Tuesday and the Markets
From Mr. Trump: Betting on reopening the Strait of Hormuz: Front month Brent futures: The forward curve still indicates backwardation…
Read More » -
Gallup, U.Michigan, Conference Board Compared, Plus Morning Consult
Standardized indicators: Figure 1: U.Michigan Economic Sentiment (blue), Conference Board Confidence Index (brown), Gallup Confidence (green), all demeaned and divided by…
Read More » -
How Badly Is the Russian Economy Doing?
Nobody knows. But when the official statistics show negative growth, it must be pretty bad. From the FT: Russia’s…
Read More » -
Wisconsin Post-“Liberation Day” | Econbrowser
Employment and goods exports have declined. GDP flatlines in Q4. Figure 1: Wisconsin private nonfarm payroll employment, in 000’s (blue,…
Read More » -
Aizenman, Desbordes and Saadaoui: Quantifying Trade Destruction from Bombs & Bullets vs. Taxes and Sanctions
That’s my description. From their newly released NBER Working Paper, Bilateral Conflict Risk and Trade: Military Wars, Trade Wars, and…
Read More » -
More on the Gasoline Price Outlook
Lydia De Pillis has an article in the NYT on how gasoline prices don’t move one-for-one with oil prices: Fuel…
Read More »