The United States has been likened to an emerging market country in recent weeks, given its sliding currency, threats to central bank independence and concerns about foreign capital flight. So might there be circumstances under which the U.S. would borrow from the playbook of an actual EM country – Argentina – to lessen its gargantuan … Read more
US consumer inflation cooled last month on plunging gas prices, according to government data published Wednesday, as consumers and businesses waited nervously for President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs to come into effect. The US leader last week announced levies as high as 50 percent on imports from some countries, sending stock markets tumbling and bond … Read more
Wall Street analysts and economists have converged on a more turbulent near-term trajectory for the US economy. The outlook is bumpier than anticipated, with lower growth rates, greater inflationary pressures, and more complicated international economic and financial interactions. However, opinions still diverge sharply on the longer-term prospects, with some believing the US is sharpening its … Read more
The US is not in a recession, despite the indicator bearing my name saying that it is. The Sahm rule, which was triggered with Friday’s weaker-than-expected jobs report, joins a long list of economic tools skewed by the unusual disruptions of the past four and a half years. That said — and I say this … Read more
Turmoil in the markets has renewed fears that the US did not escape history after all, that a hard landing — a recession — is coming. Whether this is all a blip from a rising yen or a justified reaction to an actual weakening of the US economy is still unknowable. But there are reasons … Read more
Fiscal conservatism has more or less vanished from America’s political landscape. Government borrowing, despite the strong economy, continues to push public debt to record levels – and the presidential contenders and their parties say scarcely a word about it. To the extent they discuss economic policy at all, their intentions on taxes and public spending … Read more
U.S. inflation rose moderately in March, but that is unlikely to change financial markets’ expectations that the Federal Reserve will hold off cutting interest rates until September. The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index increased 0.3% last month, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis said on Friday. Data for February was unrevised to show … Read more
Production at U.S. factories increased solidly in March as output at motor vehicle assembly plants and elsewhere rose, suggesting that manufacturing was turning the corner after being constrained by higher borrowing costs. Manufacturing output rose 0.5% last month after an upwardly revised 1.2% rebound in the prior month, the Federal Reserve said on Tuesday. Factory … Read more
Alexander MacKay co-leads the Pricing Lab at Harvard Business School, a research center devoted to studying how companies set prices. Since the pandemic, he has watched how businesses have become more willing to experiment with what they charge their customers. Big companies that had previously pushed through one standard price increase per year are now … Read more
WASHINGTON: The U.S. economy expanded at a 2.1% annual pace from April through June, showing continued resilience in the face of higher borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, the government said Wednesday in a downgrade from its initial estimate. The government had previously estimated that the economy expanded at a 2.4% annual rate last quarter. … Read more