We have previously mentioned how important it is to interpret CPI growth carefully. Inflation is the trend rate of growth in the “general price level”, and as a result there are other factors that get caught up in our attempts to measure inflation. James Hamilton at Econbrowser pointed to a paper by Reis and Watson […]
I don’t like to do this, but I’m getting a bit sick of bank commentary following the HLFS release. This is specifically from ANZ’s weekly report this morning: While employment tumbled 1.1 percent in Q1, the unemployment rate “only” rose to 5.0 percent as a number of workers leaving the labour force limited its rise […]
There is an interesting article on the Rates Blog that I have been meaning to mention by Rodney Dickens. Although I don’t agree with him that the RBNZ is being silly – I do think he makes a good point when looking at the exchange rate. the forex market [may have] pushed the exchange rate […]
So unemployment in Australia fell from 5.7% in March to 5.4% in April. Following our better than expected March quarter this is all very interesting. Very interesting …
This figure is far stronger than the market expected (5.3%) – and well stronger than I was thinking (I was personally seeing scope for 5.5% given how quickly the UR rose in 1990/91). I know unemployment is a lagging variable – but just reaching the “neutral rate” after 15 months of recession is a strong […]
Another article on alcohol retailing provides this “beautiful” quote (FYI this follows on from a previous post): The end of loss-leading was welcomed by Glengarry product manager Liz Wheaden, who said the practice had the potential to lower customer expectations at the same time as it “destroys” brands. Loss-leading made customers come to expect to […]