We cannot have a Chinese financial crisis right now. My schedule is already full. Anyway, trying to come up to speed on Evergrande; this post by Michael Pettis is helpful 1/ carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancial…
There seems to be a broad consensus that while bad, this isn't China's Lehman moment. Of course, broad consensuses have been wrong a lot these past 15 years. But here's the thing: even the Lehman moment wasn't really a Lehman moment 2/
What I mean is that the financial disruption of 2008-9 was fairly brief — but the economy stayed depressed for many years thereafter, suggesting that the liquidity crisis was less of the story than longer-term factors 3/
In retrospect, there's a good case that the reason the bursting of the housing bubble seemed to matter so much was that it was masking an underlying problem of secular stagnation. The same might be said of Japan's real estate-stock bubble of the late 1980s 4/
And if you think demography is a key factor in secstag — which I still mostly do, despite some recent discussion of inequality — worth noting that China is starting to display Japan-like demography (pop 15-64) 5/
Plus China's economy still wildly unbalanced 6/
So even if Evergrande is contained — hey, remember when people said that about subprime? — it may be the leading edge of bigger problems 7/

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More from @paulkrugman

23 Sep
Leona Helmsley was right: only the little people pay taxes. Well, OK, the richest 400 individuals pay about 8 percent taxes. But that's not much 1/ whitehouse.gov/cea/blog/2021/…
We should all be furious about this; but maybe especially the merely affluent. Take my favorite from the movie Wall Street: "A $400,000 a year working Wall Street stiff, flying first class and being comfortable." According to IRS calculator, that guy pays 28% in fed income tax 2/
Not even considering payroll taxes, which are 15.3% for most Americans but negligible for the rich, and state and local taxes, which are highly regressive 3/
Read 4 tweets
17 Sep
Really surprised to see Greg Mankiw raising the specter of European economies depressed by excessively large welfare states. Even more surprised to see him citing as his main source a 2003(!) paper by Ed Prescott 1/ nytimes.com/2021/09/15/opi…
The image of Europe staggering under the disincentive effects of taxes and social benefits is way out of date. These days prime-age adults are *more* likely to be employed in Europe than in the US 2/
GDP per capita is lower, but mainly because Europeans take much more vacation time than Americans do — and not because of high taxes. Alesina et al debunked that claim (and Prescott) long ago 3/ nber.org/system/files/c…
Read 4 tweets
10 Sep
Biden's vaccine mandate is terrific public policy; it is, more or less literally, what the doctor ordered. Is it good politics? We don't know. But one thing worth noting is the contrast with Obama 1/
It's now clear that Republicans effectively sabotaged Obama's economy, slowing the recovery, by imposing fiscal austerity (using completely false claims that they were worried about debt.) And Obama was basically passive, even accepting their premises 2/
Rs are now sabotaging Biden by undermining the fight against Covid; how self-conscious they are about this is something we can argue, but that's how it's working out. And having blocked basic public health measures, they're all set to blame Biden for Covid's persistence 3/
Read 5 tweets
9 Sep
Ricardo Reis is asking the right question: the current rate of inflation, or even the rate over the next year plus, matters less than whether pricing behavior starts to build in expectations of future inflation 1/ brookings.edu/bpea-articles/…
Historically, we've had episodes of high inflation that didn't get built in, and faded quickly; the 70s was exceptional 2/
But how can we tell? Not sure that surveys are the best or at least only approach. Suggestion: look at price- and wage-setting behavior 3/
Read 8 tweets
4 Sep
Responses to this confirm something I've observed before: nothing gets people angrier than monetary theory. Say that Trump is a traitor and they yawn; say that fiat money works and they scream incoherently 1/ nytimes.com/2021/09/03/opi…
Two points I'd like to clarify. As some point out, Hayek eventually endorsed monetary stimulus in a depression. But he was very much a liquidationist in the 1930s, which is when it mattered 2/
Second, some object to my grouping Hayek with Schumpeter, because they had different stories about overinvestment: Schumpeter emphasized innovation, Hayek loose money. But that misses the point 3/
Read 5 tweets
28 Aug
Mississippi has passed a grim milestone: Its total Covid deaths per capita exceed the toll in New York, which mostly happened early in the pandemic when we didn't know much about the disease — and didn't have vaccines 1/
One observation: early on people thought the pandemic was a problem for densely populated urban areas. But MS is very rural 2/
In fact, at this point there's a negative correlation between density and Covid death rates (7-day average) 3/
Read 4 tweets

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