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Justin Wolfers

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U.S. payrolls grew by +266k, which would be fabulous in normal times, but is utterly disappointing at a moment in which forecasters expected +1 million jobs, and we’re still missing

GDP rose by +7.4% in Q3 (pretty much exactly as expected), after falling by -9.0% in Q2 and -1.3% in Q1. All told, the economy is -3.5% smaller than it

Payrolls rose +661k in September and unemployment fell half a point to 7.9%.We are still 11 million jobs below the February level -- a larger gap than at the low

The Fed's announces tweaks to its monetary policy strategy.https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20200827a.htm I suspect Fed watchers will see this as big. It seems more like a gradual evolution to me.There are

My latest @nytimes column: Official economic statistics understate total output during a pandemic. Shifting from producing stuff to producing health is productive, but we don't charge for saving our neighbors

Richard "500 deaths" Epstein is writing about faulty coronavirus models. Surprisingly, he's not apologizing for his faulty models leading the government to shut down too slowly. No, he's claiming that

Important data here from @jhaushofer & collaborators, comparing actual attitudes with (mis-)perceptions about attitudes:Should we stop social gatherings?97% say yesbut they think only 67% believe this.Should we close stores?77% say

Not a single economist or public health expert. Lemme risk being serious at this moment and do some economics. No committee to re-open the economy can succeed if they're not

I'm seeing little eddies of discontent about economics v. epidemiology.I've been party to *tons* of economics discussions over recent weeks, and this really isn't a thing. Economists have been reading

Nope, that ain’t it at all. They’re forecasting GDP to fall in Q2 at an *annualized rate* of 30%. That’s actually a quarterly decline of about 7%.Annualized rates simply aren’t

My latest with @qdbui for @UpshotNYT: The usual economic indicators can't keep up when the economy is shifting this fast. So we turn to electricity data which suggests the economy

My latest: The unemployment figures released today are old news, telling us about the economy 3 weeks ago.Far better to focus on the unemployment rate *today*.So I pieced together some