San Francisco Fed Economic Letter: Estimating Natural Rates of Unemployment

[Federal Reserve Bank San Francisco Economic Letter 2022-14, by Brandyn Bok and Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau]

Before the pandemic, the U.S. unemployment rate reached a historic low that was close to estimates of its underlying longer-run value and the short-run level associated with an absence of inflationary pressures. After two turbulent years, unemployment has returned to its pre-pandemic low, and the estimated underlying longer-run unemployment rate appears largely unchanged. However, economic disruptions appear to have pushed up the short-run noninflationary rate substantially, as high as 6%. Examining these different measures of the natural rate of unemployment can provide useful insights for policymakers.

Read the full article [archived PDF].

World-Watching: 21st International Economic Forum on Africa 2022

[From the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)]

The Future Africa Wants: Better Policies for the Next Generation and a Sustainable Transition

Fast and brutal mutations in the global economy today are reshaping conditions for transforming African economies and creating better opportunities for its youth. Efforts to reduce the continent’s dependence on raw material exports, advance productive transformation and increase investment and domestic resource mobilization are being challenged.

Can innovative policies and international partnerships help address: 

Join OECD experts, African leaders and policy makers and shakers to discuss next steps for a more sustainable future.

The 21st edition of the AUOECD International Economic Forum on Africa takes places in the framework of the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting (MCM), chaired by Italy under the theme “The Future We Want: Better Policies for the Next Generation and a Sustainable Transition.” The Forum is an opportunity for OECD members to engage at high level, yet informally, with Africa’s leaders, movers and shakers on the way forward.

Register to attend in person.

Can’t come to Paris? Join the Forum online, watch it on OECD TV, Twitter or Facebook

World-Watching: Germany Bundesbank: What Moves Markets?

[Deutsche Bundesbank discussion paper 16/2022 by Mark Kerssenfischer & Maik Schmeling]

Non-technical summary

Research question

A key question in the macro-finance literature concerns the drivers of asset prices. Are asset prices mainly driven by news, or by changes in sentiment and other factors unrelated to economic fundamentals? In most asset pricing models, news play a dominant role. But in empirical investigations, the explanatory power of news is often quite low.

Contribution

We study the explanatory power of news by building a large, time-stamped event database covering a wealth of news related to the macroeconomy, including macroeconomic data releases, central bank announcements, bond auctions, election results, sovereign rating downgrades, and natural catastrophes. We combine this event database with high-frequency stock price and bond yield changes, both for the U.S. and the euro area, going back to 2002.

Results

We find that roughly half of all stock and bond price movements in the U.S. and euro area occur in tight windows around clearly identifiable news and in this sense can be explained by those news. On the positive side, this share is much higher than most previous studies found. However, our results still ascribe a large role to return variation that cannot be linked to news about economic fundamentals.

Read the paper [archived PDF].

Asia-Watching: New Studies on Tariffs; FDIs and Global Value Chains

[from Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, May 15, 2022]

Study on Tariffs: Analysis of the
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
Tariff Liberalization Schedules

prepared by Carlos Kuriyama, Sylwyn C. Calizo Jr. & Jason Carlo O. Carranceja

RCEP is the largest regional free trade agreement (FTA) in the world. Its potential is huge, as its 15 members account for about 2.2 billion people (30% of the global population), a regional gross domestic product (GDP) of about USD38,813 billion (30% of global GDP), and 28.8% of global trade. This study examines market access commitments and comparing the extent of tariff liberalization within RCEP as well as the other major regional FTA in the Asia-Pacific, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

Read the full article [archived PDF].

The FDI Network, Global Value Chain Participation and Economic Upgrading

by Luna Ge Lai, Nguyen Thu Quynh & Akhmad Bayhaqi

Foreign direct investment (FDI) represents an important internationalization pathway to global value chain (GVC) participation. APEC economies as a group have dominated as FDI recipients, accounting for nearly 52% of the global inward FDI stock. This study analyses the role of FDI in economiesGVC participation.

Read the full article [archived PDF].

USDA Foreign Agricultural Service: World Agricultural Production

Monthly report on crop acreage, yield and production in major countries worldwide. Sources include reporting from FAS’s worldwide offices, official statistics of foreign governments, and analysis of economic data and satellite imagery. The report reflects official USDA estimates released in the monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE).

Sign up for USDA FAS mailings.

World-Watching Energy: Gas Future Demand

Future of EU Gas Demand

[from E3G, by Euan Graham, Kamila Godzinska]

The EU is implementing an ambitious package of measures to reduce its reliance on Russian gas, targeting both supply and demand. REPowerEU will accelerate the EU’s move away from reliance on gas imports over the next decade.

When it comes to U.S. gas exports, while this will lead to an increased reliance on liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the short term, the outlined strategy doesn’t imply any long-term LNG market growth. The U.S. can supply Europe with sufficient LNG without building new infrastructure. New findings show that, with clean technologies and energy efficiency, EU gas demand will decline before newly proposed projects are actually completed — 15-20 years — and long payback periods mean LNG export projects may never recover the capital investment.

[LNG projects timeline]
Indicative construction and payback timelines for new LNG terminals, contrasted to additional LNG demand set out in REPowerEU. LNG demand between 2025 and 2030 reflects the potential of increased action on demand-side as set out by E3G.

Read the full briefing [archived PDF] on the future of EU gas demand.

Japan-Watching: Governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s Special Lecture

[from Columbia Business School’s Center on Japanese Economy and Business]

Japan’s Inflation Dynamics and the Role of Monetary Policy (April 22, 2022)

by Haruhiko Kuroda (黒田 東彦), Governor, Bank of Japan (日本銀行)

UN DESA Global Policy Dialogue Series: The Future of Sustainable Development Financing

Thursday, 14 April 2022, 8:30-10:00 AM EDT

  • What should be the role of development banks in closing financing gaps?
  • What tools or guidance documents for responsible borrowing and lending exist, and how can they be useful?
  • How can the global community better support the most vulnerable countries and ease their debt burdens?

Two years into the pandemic, COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated global inequalities and set back hard-earned progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is critical that the global community work together to avoid the catastrophic situation in which one group of countries recovers, and another sinks deeper into a cycle of poverty and unsustainable debt. To support efforts to overcome the great finance divide, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) will host a discussion with experts exploring ideas to improve access to affordable financing as well as how to resolve situations of unsustainable sovereign debt. Speakers will examine the latest findings from UN DESA’s new report, the 2022 Financing for Sustainable Development Report.

Register here by 13 April 2022.

More information.

The event is free and open to all, and will be streamed live on UN DESA’s Facebook page. It will be held in English with captions available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish, and translation into American Sign Language. The event is made possible by the United Nations Peace and Development Trust Fund. All are welcome!

Bank of England Statistical Releases—February 2022

(from the Bank of England)

Money and Credit

Overview

These monthly statistics on the amount of, and interest rates on, borrowing and deposits by households and businesses are used by the Bank’s policy committees to understand economic trends and developments in the UK banking system.

Key Points
  • Net borrowing of mortgage debt by individuals amounted to £4.7 billion in February. Mortgage approvals for house purchases fell slightly to 71,000 in February, from 73,800 in January, but remains above the 12-month pre-pandemic average up to February 2020 of 66,700.
  • Consumers borrowed an additional £1.9 billion in consumer credit, on net, of which £1.5 billion was new lending on credit cards.
  • Sterling money (known as M4ex) increased by £7.2 billion in February. Households’ holdings of money weakened with net flows of £4.0 billion, compared with £7.2 billion in January.
  • The effective interest rate paid on individuals’ new time deposits with banks and building societies rose by 10 basis points to 0.77%.
  • Large businesses borrowing from banks rose to £4.0 billion in February, whilst small and medium sized businesses repaid £0.5 billion. Private non-financial companies (PNFCs) redeemed £4.1 billion in net finance from capital markets.

Read the full paper [Archived PDF].

Effective Interest Rates

Commentary on this data is now incorporated into the Money and Credit statistical release [Archived PDF, from above] to facilitate analysis.

Get the data tables [Archived Excel XLS].