Archive for October 2015

The Friday File: Four weeks into Stephen Colbert’s new late-night TV show, he is running neck-and-neck with Jimmy Fallon with 3.9 million viewers, compared to Fallon’s 4.0 million. Colbert has 1.2 million 18-49 year-olds while Fallon has 1.5 million. They are both tied among those aged 18-34. Colbert’s viewership is up 58% compared to Letterman’s.…

Prices at the factory gate fell for the 43rd straight month in China as the manufacturing sector continues to battle massive overcapacity and weak global and domestic demand. At the same time, Chinese imports fell for the 11th straight month and Chinese inflation, as measured by the CPI, is running at a very anemic 1.6%…

When the local unemployment rate rises by one percentage point, the share of jobs requiring a bachelor’s rises by 0.44% and 2+ years of experience by 0.79%. Call this “opportunistic upskilling.” When the reverse occurs, there’s a 0.2% decrease in the share of jobs requiring a bachelor’s and a 0.22% decline in jobs requiring 5+…

The federal government ran a deficit of $435 billion in FY15, $48 billion less than in FY14. The deficit in FY15 was 2.4% of GDP, its sixth consecutive yearly decline, and slightly below the average of the past 50 years. Revenues were up 8% and expenditures 5%. If braindead Congress allows sequestration to kick in…

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Angus Deaton of Princeton University. His work focuses on the individual, not the economy. He concerns himself with consumption (not incomes), including caloric intake, education, discrimination and healthcare and their impact on individual outcomes such as life expectancy of the poor, primarily in developing…

The Friday File: Being on the cover of Sports Illustrated has been a jinx to many. The cover isn’t the culprit. Rather, the individual or team chosen has enjoyed a particularly good run of recent success, necessarily abetted by luck, and luck eventually runs out. This statistical phenomenon is called regression to the mean and…

This past Monday, twelve Pacific Rim nations (excluding China) that comprise 40% of world trade closed the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement. Assuming it’s ratified by all twelve nations, it should, by the year 2025, raise global GDP by 1%, US and Canadian GDP by a non-trivial 0.4% and Japan’s GDP by 2%. In our…

The FDA uses one statistical standard when deciding whether to approve a new drug. The rule is designed to prevent bad drugs from being sold and good ones from being rejected. Instead, the rule should be based on illness severity and affected population size. A deadly disease affecting a tiny population should have a low…

The labor force participation rate (LFPR) is 62.4%, its lowest level since 10/77. Its peak was 67.3% in 4/00. Immediately following the Great Recession it was 65.5%. Amazingly, the male LFPR peaked in 10/49 at 87.4% and is now 68.7%, while the female LFPR peaked in 4/00 at 60.3% and is currently 56.4%. These declines…

Last Friday’s September employment numbers were weak. Net new jobs were just 142,000, well below expectations, prior months’ employment gains were revised down, wage growth was flat, overtime hours fell, and the labor force contracted by 350,000. But with energy and mining weak, exports falling due to a global slowdown, bloated inventories needing to be…