Justin Wolfers
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Inflation expectations are declining, and the three-year expectation is now back to pre-pandemic "normal."
As a suicide survivor, I just want to tell those feeling the despair of depression that being alive is worth it. There is no permanent nirvana of happiness at the end of the tunnel, but with the right resources, you will be able to eventually find the good days worth living for. twitter.com/liamstack/stat…
Retweeted by Justin Wolfers cc all macroeconomists, as well as their colleagues who have the ability to constrain them twitter.com/JonSteinsson/s…
I have never before seen a standing ovation at the AEA meetings — and would guess that this may have been the first ever standing ovation — as the great Sadie Alexander was just awarded a posthumous distinguished fellow award. #ASSA2023
Currently at the session on "Gender in the Economics Profession," and let me surprise you by noting that while #ASSA2023 is majority male, the audience here is >80% female.
Just remember that in order to get here, McCarthy agreed to ensure that it takes just one member to force a snap vote on ousting the Speaker.
Some perspective on the 2022 “recession”: 4.5 million jobs were created last year, the second largest gain in recorded U.S. history. (The largest was 2021.)
Hey, so my session at #ASSA2023 is being live streamed, so if you’re an econ instructor looking for guidance on future course preps, I’m talking about “Course Prep as Upcycling”, and you can tune in now… aeaweb.org/conference/liv… #TeachEcon
Walking around the big annual econ gabfest known as #ASSA2023 and even though I've been for each of the last 20-25 years, the nagging anxiety of imposter syndrome never quite goes away. Perhaps the only thing that helps is the realization that everyone else feels the same way.
Note that the mass unemployment of elected-but-not-yet-seated-and-so-not-on-payroll Congressional Representatives occurred after these December employment numbers, and they should affect the January report.
Lemme draw a line under today's jobs report: Rapid job growth, record low unemployment, and wage growth running at levels likely to cool inflation is an astonishing trifecta of good news.
Here's a favorite game of mine. Choose your favorite stat to describe recent wage growth.
Annualized rate of growth over the past...
1 month: 3.4%
2 months: 4.1%
3 months: 4.1%
4 months: 4.3%
5 months: 4.1%
6 months: 4.5%
Year: 4.6%
"Around 4%" seems like a reasonable summary.
Lemme take back my earlier tweet... Wage growth of 0.27% this month is an annualized rate of 3.4%, and if that persisted, our inflation problems would dissipate. The Fed should be *very* happy that this month's wage numbers are unlikely to be inflationary.
twitter.com/JustinWolfers/…
Equally, there's no evidence of a wage-price spiral, and some (weak) evidence that wage growth is slowing. Over the past three months, wages grew at an annualized rate of 4.1%, compared with 4.8% over the prior 3 months.
The Fed is going to be watching hourly earnings like a hawk. It grew +0.3% in December (actually 0.27%), which will worry the Fed. But over the year, wages have grown 4.6% which is consistent with inflation falling to 3-point-something percent.
Looking across industries, it sure looks like some of this job gain is occurring in the sectors you would expect to benefit from the economy re-opening and returning to normal (Of extra note is that construction jobs grew, despite the Fed.)
Household survey shows a bonkers rate of job growth (+717k) bringing it closer to the remarkable recent growth in the payrolls survey.
Over 2022, the household survey shows total job growth of 3.2m, while the payrolls survey says 4.5 million jobs were created. Either is 🔥🔥🔥
Hang on, I've just calculated the unemployment rate to extra decimal places, and December's rate of 3.468% is a new 50 YEAR LOW, the lowest rate since 1969.
Payrolls jobs for the previous two months were revised down slights (November down 7k to +256k; October down 21k to +263k). But still the 3-month average is rocking along at an extraordinary +247k new jobs per month, and if it's slowing, not by much.
It's jobs day, and non-farm payrolls for December comes in HOT again, adding 223k jobs, which is both robust in its own right, and stronger than expected.
Unemployment is down a tick to 3.5%, near 50-year lows. Anyone who thinks this is economy is in a recession is bananas.
apropos of something, some useful game theory notes on the war of attrition. web.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Econ%…
Pretty darn elementary logical error here. twitter.com/PaulREhrlich/s…
Why hasn't the leader of the Republican party — and presumptive nominee — done anything to fix this mess?
Next time an economist objects to behavioral assumptions — say of hyperbolic discounting — invite them on the flight to #ASSA2023 — where (at least on my flight) they're all preparing the slides they had hoped to complete a week ago.
After three failed attempts & an adjournment, the latest odds basically put McCarthy and Scalise as *equal* favorites. I don't know what prediction markets really tell you about events like this, beyond being a useful summary of the conventional wisdom. Still, I find that helpful
Latest betting odds.
McCarthy 47%
White supremacist election denier 34%
Wrestling and sex abuse election denier 14%
Flip flopping election denier 5%
Jan 6 instigator election denier 2%
A Democrat 2%
predictit.org/markets/detail…
Some pretty interesting drama as the House is set to elect the next Speaker. (It's normally all sewn up by now, with deals having been made and numbers having been counted.)
A lovely write-up from @Jess_Irvine of the four core principles that underpin the Principles of Economics textbook that @BetseyStevenson and I wrote. Might make for a lovely reading assignment for the first week of Econ 101. #TeachEcon
smh.com.au/business/the-e…
A close reading of rulebook reveals that it is technically impossible for Ohio State to be crowned national champions having lost badly to Michigan and failing to even make their conference championship game.
The football team I work for — it employs a small cadre of about thirty economists and various others — is about to kick off in what should be a great game. #GoBlue
We've lost a giant in development economics, one of the world's great poverty scholars, and a great Australian. twitter.com/joelhellman_SF…
These would make truly lovely (and sort of evil) exam questions for graduate students. twitter.com/johnvanreenen/…
He should have reasoned with the 'roo. twitter.com/BornAKang/stat…
In economics research, everyone has the same hard skills. Soft skills are most of the hidden curriculum.
All of these seem to transfer. Especially the “never gossip” tip. twitter.com/heykahn/status…
Retweeted by Justin Wolfers "we instrument for the usage of TikTok by college students using idiosyncratic executive orders... our triple difference strategy compares college students in state schools with those at private universities and to students in states with no Tiktok ban..." gizmodo.com/tiktok-tiktok-…
Has inflation peaked? Hear why economist @JustinWolfers thinks we will be much less worried about inflation in a year.
Listen: link.chtbl.com/InTheBubble?si…
Retweeted by Justin Wolfers An economic forecast for 2023 with @JustinWolfers. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-…
Retweeted by Justin Wolfers OK let's try this again, ordering a nothing burger from McDonalds. this time nothing else in the order.
will they cancel it? deliver an empty bag? i am doing this so you don't have to
Retweeted by Justin Wolfers When the conference discussant starts by saying how much they enjoyed your paper. #ASSA2023 twitter.com/TheFigen_/stat…
It's like Anna Delvey ran for Congress (and won) nyti.ms/3Wsx7x7
Sorry, too few options.
Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of *this* poll.
Definitely yes
Yes!!!
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Yes
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No twitter.com/elonmusk/statu…
Special guest @JustinWolfers: "How many people two years ago would've said unemployment's going to be 3.5% by the middle of 2022? It felt unimaginable during the deepest moments of the deepest recession since the Great Depression."
#InsideEconomics pod: apple.co/3uPsRvX
Retweeted by Justin Wolfers On exit v. voice, I vote for voice. twitter.com/jenniferdoleac…
Can you think of anyone who has a legitimate use case for crypto, who only discovers it subsequent to seeing one of the myriad crypto ads during a football game?
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