News
Market Watch | China’s current-account surplus shrinks 18%
A broad measure of China’s global trade contracted by nearly one-fifth in the first quarter, though the data were seen as more of a soft patch than as indicating a major trend change that would dent the case for a stronger yuan, analysts said.
Bloomberg | Oil Rises After Biggest Loss in Week; Goldman Sachs Boosts Price Forecast
Oil rose in New York after its biggest loss in more than a week, on signs of shrinking crude inventories and as a drop in the dollar heightened the oil’s appeal for protecting against inflation.
Market Watch | Consumer spending expected to slow down
Despite persistent unease over their personal finances, consumers remain the backbone of the economy, and data to be released this week will show the state of their spending.
CNN: Money | Obama budget chief optimistic on debt deal
A bipartisan group of negotiators is "making progress" toward finding a way to both raise the debt ceiling and whittle down budget deficits, President Obama's top budget chief said Monday.
Fox News | A look at economic developments around the globe
A look at economic developments and activity in major stock markets around the World Monday.
Econ Comments
Washington Times | RAHN: Banking on national economic suicide
New account reporting rule would drive out foreign capital.
Washington Times | VALVO: Energy subsidies threaten to break GOP’s small-government promise
Republicans welcome central planners to natural gas market.
Politico | Lower gas prices are possible now
Excessive speculation defeats the purpose for the commodity markets, which have been largely taken over by new speculators from the capital markets gambling on future price moves. If this practice stops, prices for commodities such as oil and gasoline will fall.
Washington Times | EDITORIAL: The Obama slowdown
Big-government policies continue to drag down the economy.
Minyanville | Why Bernanke Will Be Forced to Institute QE3
Here, the two factors that suggest it's likely we'll see more quantitative easing.
Blogs
WSJ: Real Time Economics | Nearly Half of Americans Are ‘Financially Fragile’
Nearly half of Americans say that they definitely or probably couldn’t come up with $2,000 in 30 days, according to new research, raising concerns about the financial fragility of many households.
Reports
NBER | Stock Volatility During the Recent Financial Crisis
This paper uses monthly returns from 1802-2010, daily returns from 1885-2010, and intraday returns from 1982-2010 in the United States to show how stock volatility has changed over time. It also uses various measures of volatility implied by option prices to infer what the market was expecting to happen in the months following the financial crisis in late 2008.
OECD | Compendium of OECD well-being indicators
This Compendium represents one of the first attempts to respond to the demand for comparative information on the conditions of people.s lives in developed market economies. Previous contributions in this field have focused on the conditions of poorer countries and on a more narrow range of dimensions (e.g. Human Development Index). This Compendium extends these efforts on both fronts.
