Byron Gangnes
Tap Fed Lending Facilities to Support Local Economy
By Carl Bonham, Byron Gangnes, Sumner LaCroix, and James Mak The State and counties are facing unprecedented budget shortfalls in this fiscal year and the next. While a combination of carry-over funds and monies from various special funds could tide the State over in the very short run, tax revenue declines that could easily top […]
Read MoreInterim Forecast Update: Hawaii’s Economy is Shut Down to Deal with COVID-19
This is UHERO’s second interim forecast update to address dramatic recent developments associated with the novel coronavirus pandemic. Much has changed since the interim forecast update that we released three weeks ago. COVID-19 has spread to more and more countries, with disastrous impacts being seen in several major European economies, including Italy and Spain. Nationally, […]
Read MoreInterim Forecast Update: COVID-19 Will Impose Significant Economic Impacts in Hawaii
The spread of the novel coronavirus and recent visitor falloff lead us to lower sharply our outlook for the Hawaii economy. In the baseline forecast, real visitor spending is expected to fall more than 10% this year and payroll jobs by 0.6%, with an attenuated recovery path. Alternative scenarios reflect a wide range of possible […]
Read MoreTariff Peril
By Byron Gangnes, Peter Fuleky, and Carl Bonham In a Sunday Tweet, President Trump threatened this week to increase dramatically the tariffs he has placed on imports from China. The aggressive trade policies of the administration and retaliation by foreign countries are already having an adverse impact on the US, China, and other trade partners. […]
Read MoreWhat will we get with Trump?
By Byron Gangnes The unexpected election of Donald Trump has thrown a monkey wrench into forecasting the US and global economy. During the Presidential race, candidate Trump promised an array of dramatic policy changes, many of which could have dramatic economic impacts. The question now is which policies President Trump will in fact advance, which […]
Read MoreGlobal Value Chains and Changing Trade Elasticities
The trade collapse of 2008-2009 and the anemic trade growth since then raise the question of whether trade elasticities may be undergoing fundamental structural change. A potential source of such change is the spread of global value chains (GVCs), which have brought a marked increase in the use of intermediate goods and changes in the […]
Read MoreGlobal Value Chains and Trade Elasticities
Previous studies have argued that global value chains (GVCs) have increased the sensitivity of trade to external business cycle shocks. This may occur either because GVC trade is concentrated in durable goods industries, which are known to have high income elasticities (a composition effect), or because, within industries, GVC trade has a higher income elasticity […]
Read MoreYellen: How The Fed Will Know When To Stop
Federal Reserve Board Vice Chair Janet Yellen has laid out the argument for continued Fed action and the conditions the Fed will watch when deciding to ease off monetary stimulus. In remarks to the policy conference of the National Association for Business Economics in Washington DC last week, Yellen elaborated on the Federal Open Market […]
Read MoreRobust Hope for Housing
The US housing market turned the corner in 2012 and is set for healthy expansion for the next several years. This according to economists at the annual policy conference of the National Association for Business Economics meeting in Washington last week. Median single family resale prices rose 6-10% last year, depending on the measure one uses, and […]
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