Viewpoints: 2020

In what now seems like ancient times, state labor market data was strong in January. Twelve states had statistically significant increases in payrolls over the month, led by a 35,700 gain in Florida and 33,500 in New York. Some other [...]

Two of largest quarterly declines in economic activity during the post war period occurred during a financial crisis and a widespread cessation of consumer and business activity triggered by uncertainty (and panic) following the [...]

The global spread of COVID-19 represents a classic example of a supply shock. In this case, the factor of production affected is labor. Despite the advance of artificial intelligence, global production of goods and services still [...]

Last weeks' sharp decline in the equity market was both historic and unusual. In a span of 5 trading days, the S&P 500 index dropped 11.5%, one of the largest single week declines on record. And what is also unusual about last week's [...]

A large number of US companies are relying on accounting gimmicks to strip out various costs in order to make reported profits appear to be better (or losses less small) than actually is the case. Once again the biggest adjustment [...]

Price targeting has failed as a monetary policy experiment, forcing policymakers to now consider a new process to achieve its price stability mandate. Policymakers are considering shifting to an "average" inflation rate over a span of [...]

Analysts and investors have been betting on a rebound in operating profits for 2020, even though profits are running up against a powerful (negative) trend in the annals of business cycles. New events on the international side of [...]

The charts below show the behavior of some important measures of economic performance. Generally, the time period shown in the charts starts in the early 1950s and runs through the end of 2019. In some cases, the data are not [...]