was there a double dip in the 1930s?
There is a lot of comment at the moment about the risks of a ‘double-dip’ recession, citing evidence from America in the 1930s. Well, here is the annual growth rate of real GDP in the United States in the 1930s: 1930 -8.9 1931 -7.7 1932 -13.2 1933 -2.11 1934 +7.6 1935 +7.7 1936 +14.2 1937 […]
World Cup: increasingly random outcomes
The most striking feature of world soccer is that it has become far more egalitarian in terms of performance. The gap between good and bad teams has narrowed dramatically over time. An obvious measure of this is the average number of goals scored each game in the World Cup finals. Large differences in ability will […]
cutting the deficit
The new Government’s plans to reduce the deficit much more sharply than most people expected. Will this stimulate or depress the economy? Not surprisingly there is a fierce debate about this. But it is a situation in which econometric evidence is not going to be of much use at all in arbitrating the dispute. So […]
