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- BNET Author Biography
Mark Thoma is a macroeconomist and time-series econometrician at the University of Oregon. His research focuses on how monetary policy affects the economy, and he has also worked on political business cycle models and models of transportation dynamics. Mark blogs daily at Economist's View.- more about Mark Thoma »
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- Existing Home Sales Rise 10.1 Percent
- The national Association of Realtors reports that existing home sales rose 10.1 percent in October: Driven by the first-time buyer tax credit, existing-home sales showed another big gain in October with a strong uptrend established over the past seven months, while inventories continue to decline, according...
- Blog posts 2009-11-23
- Why Employment Might Not Fully Recover Until 2013
- The most recent employment report shows the unemployment rate at 10.2 percent, and the broader unemployment rate that accounts for part-time work and discouraged workers at 17.5 percent. With numbers like these, can we expect good news on the employment front anytime soon? Historically, a good rule...
- Blog posts 2009-11-10
- Financial Reform: How We Should Choose the Regulators
- Editor's Note: Economist Mark Thoma is guest-blogging for The Macro View this week. With all the talk of financial reform lately, one area I don't think is receiving enough attention is how the regulators who will oversee the financial system will be chosen. I will use the...
- Blog posts 2009-09-23
- Analysis: The Fed's Rate Decision and Exit Strategy
- Editor's Note: Economist Mark Thoma is guest-blogging for The Macro View this week. After its rate setting meeting today, the Fed announced that it "will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent," and that it "continues to anticipate that economic...
- Blog posts 2009-09-23
- Health Care Reform: The Baucus "Free Rider" Problem
- Editor's Note: Economist Mark Thoma is guest-blogging for The Macro View this week. There is one provision in the Baucus health care proposal that I believe needs to be changed. It's known as the "free rider" provision. Under the Baucus plan, if a worker...
- Blog posts 2009-09-24
- What the Unemployment Numbers Tell Us About the Economy
- Editor's Note: Economist Mark Thoma is guest-blogging for The Macro View this week. The weekly report on new claims for unemployment benefits was released yesterday, and it showed that claims fell by 21,000 to 530,000. This continues a series of small improvements in recent weeks, but today's...
- Blog posts 2009-09-25
- What the Latest Economic Reports Say About the Recovery
- Editor's Note: Economist Mark Thoma is guest-blogging for The Macro View this week. There are two reports out today that continue to raise caution flags about the strength of the recovery. First, durable goods orders for August were down 2.4 percent, the second decrease in the last three months. This...
- Blog posts 2009-09-25
- Will There Be a 'New Normal' For Unemployment?
- In my last post, I wrote about the longer than usual time period I think it will take for unemployment to return to its normal, or full employment level, but I didn't define what normal unemployment is. An important question for policymakers is whether there will be "a new normal"...
- Blog posts 2009-11-11
- Why The Federal Reserve Needs To Be Independent
- There are several bills that have been proposed in Congress directed at the Federal Reserve. The two most prominent proposals are Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd's bill to take away most of the Fed's regulatory authority, and Congressman Ron Paul's bill to force the Fed...
- Blog posts 2009-11-12
- Today's Unemployment Report: Both Good and Bad News
- I'm between classes, but just a quick note on the new unemployment insurance claims figures that came out today: In the week ending Nov. 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 502,000, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week's revised figure of...
- Blog posts 2009-11-12
- Why We Need an Individual Mandate for Health Insurance
- There's a similarity between used cars and health care. Let's start with used cars. "The Market for Lemons" by George Akerlof is a famous paper in economics demonstrating how markets can break down when buyers and sellers are differentially informed. For example, suppose...
- Blog posts 2009-11-13
- How To Prevent the Next Financial Crisis
- What caused the financial and economic crisis? Understanding what went wrong is important because it provides a guide to the best types of legislative and regulatory responses to use to minimize the chances of this happening again. I think we understand the broad outline of what...
- Blog posts 2009-11-16
- Ben Bernanke's Outlook for the Economy
- A few quick reactions to Ben Bernanke's speech today where he talks about something of concern recently--namely, how the Fed will view changes in the value of the dollar. If the dollar begins to fall, that will increase the price of imported goods and materials used in...
- Blog posts 2009-11-16
- Data on Production and Producer Prices Will Not Change Fed Policy
- Data on industrial production, capacity utilization, and the producer price index were released today. Turning first to the price data, the seasonally adjusted data for the producer price index rose 0.3% on an annual basis, but when food and energy prices are removed to get the core...
- Blog posts 2009-11-17
- Housing Starts Fall
- Housing starts fell unexpectedly last month. The Census report gives the details: Privately-owned housing starts in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 529,000. This is 10.6 percent (±8.7%) below the revised September estimate of 592,000 and is 30.7 percent (±8.3%) below the October...
- Blog posts 2009-11-18
- What's Wrong With the Dodd Proposal to Restructure the Fed
- A proposal from Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd changes the selection process for key positions within the Federal Reserve system. Unfortunately, this proposal makes the selection process worse, not better. If this proposal is passed into law, it would further concentrate power within the Federal...
- Blog posts 2009-11-20
- What Causes Employment to Lag Output in Recoveries?
- In a previous post, I showed that after a recession ends, the recovery of employment lags the recovery of output, and that the lag has increased substantially in recent recessions. The delay in the recovery of employment has increased from about one quarter prior to 1990 to more...
- Blog posts 2009-11-20
- Why We Need Plans To Break Up Too-Big-to-Fail Banks
- Editor's Note: Economist Mark Thoma is guest-blogging for The Macro View this week. There are several proposals for financial reform with the House, Senate, and White House, each with different ideas about what needs to be changed to make the financial system more stable. However, one element...
- Blog posts 2009-09-22
- Why The Fed Should Oversee the Entire Financial System
- Editor's Note: Economist Mark Thoma is guest-blogging for the Macro View this week. Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, head of the Senate Banking Committee, is now preparing legislation to reform the financial system by creating a single regulator to oversee the financial system. Since this legislation...
- Blog posts 2009-09-21
- Some Banks Are Too Big Not to Break Up
- Mark Thoma submits: I'm just catching up with this news: Here We Go Again..., by James Kwak: The Wall Street Journal (...shorter Bloomberg article here) is reporting that Bank of America BAC will receive billions of dollars more in government aid, probably in a deal that...
- External links 2009-01-15
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