Faulty Interest Rate Signals Strike Again

Markets on the whole do a decent job of synthesizing information at the micro level, but they often get the macro signals wrong as was noted by Paul Samuelson. In his 1998 paper, Samuelson argued that there is no persuasive evidence that macro market inefficiency is...

The Interest Rate Confusion Returns

The late economist Axel Leijonhufvud noted in a 1979 essay that the theory of the interest rate mechanism remains at the centre of the confusion in modern macroeconomics. All the inconclusive quarrels, he argued, largely stem from this source. While financial market...

The US economy: down but definitely not out

The US equity market has had a surprising rebound this summer; rallying more than 17% between mid-June to mid-August. The narrative for the first half of the year had been focused on a pending recession, given that a sustained decline in economic output tends to...