Bubble, Bubble, Fraud and Trouble バブル、バブル、詐欺、トラブル The other day my barber asked me whether he should put all his money in Bitcoin. And the truth is that if he’d bought Bitcoin, say, a year ago he’d be feeling pretty good right now. On the other hand, Dutch speculators who bought tulip bulbs in 1635 also felt pretty good for a while, until tulip prices collapsed in early 1637. 先日、理容師に全財産をビットコインにつぎ込

A Further Note On Deficits and the Printing Press/March 26, 2011, 3:50 pm A Further Note On Deficits and the Printing Press 赤字予算と輪転機のことでもう一言 A followup on my printing press post: I think one way to clarify my difference with, say, Jamie Galbraith is this: imagine that at some future date, say in 2017, we’re more or less at full employment and have a federal deficit equal to 6 percent of GDP. Does

Franc Thoughts on Long-Run Fiscal Issues/August 11, 2011, 10:18 AM Franc Thoughts on Long-Run Fiscal Issues 長期的な財政問題についてのフラン考 Regular readers of comments will notice a continual stream of criticism from MMT (modern monetary theory) types, who insist that deficits are never a problem as long as you have your own currency. I really don’t want to get into that fight right now, because for the time be

Why Don’t We Have Deflation?/March 5, 2013, 8:59 am Why Don’t We Have Deflation? なぜアメリカはデフレになっていないのか？ Whenever you see a piece suggesting that the US economy has entered a “new normal” of slow growth, you’re likely to see someone making the argument that if the economy actually had lots of excess capacity, we should be seeing deflation. And the question of why we don’t have deflation is a good one

The Dollar and the Recovery (Wonkish) ドルと景気回復（専門的） Good news in today’s jobs report, and the dollar shot higher. But a stronger dollar will make US goods less competitive, and act as a brake on further recovery. So how do we think about this? How much of the US recovery will be diffused to other countries via dollar strength and a bigger trade deficit? 今日の雇用統計でいいニュースが入ってきたことで、ドル高が進んだ。でも、ドル高はアメリカ製品

Greenish Shootlets in Southern Europe (Implicitly Wonkish) 南ヨーロッパの芽吹き（言うまでもなく専門的） There are hints of recovery in some of Europe’s austerity-stricken economies. Even Greece is finally showing some signs of an uptick. And you know one thing is going to happen: some people will say, “See — growth despite austerity! Krugman and the Keynesians were wrong!” 緊縮財政が直撃した南ヨーロッパ諸国のいくつかで景気回復の兆しがある。ギリシアですらようやく経

Unbalanced in Basel バーゼルの不均衡 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard draws our attention to a speech by Jaime Caruana, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements. It is indeed a quite remarkable speech — and I mean that in the worst way; it’s a perfect illustration of the way permahawks keep finding new arguments for their never-changing demand that we raise interest rates now now now. アンブローズ・エヴァンス

The Death of High Inflation 高インフレの死 Back home, although I got a bit worried when the gate agent in Edinburgh announced a delay. At least I think that’s what she announced. The truth is that I couldn’t understand most of what she said. Ah, Scotland. エジンバラの空港職員が遅れると言った時はちょっと心配したんだが、なんとか家に帰ってこられた。少なくともその女性はそういったと思う。正直なところ、彼女の言っていることはほとんど分からなかった。ああ、スコットランドよ。 Anyway, blogging may be limited by various

Macro Trumps Micro マクロはミクロを凌駕する Or, as the late James Tobin used to say, it takes a lot of Harberger triangles to fill an Okun gap. 後年ジェームズ・トービンが言ったように、オークンギャップを埋めるにはたくさんのハーバーガーの三角形が必要になる。 Dean Baker catches David Ignatius suggesting that trade liberalization can provide enough economic boost to offset the effects of austerity. As Dean says, the arithmetic is totally off — almost two orders of mag

Monetarism Falls Short (Somewhat Wonkish)/April 28, 2013, 7:41 am Monetarism Falls Short (Somewhat Wonkish) マネタリズムには何かが足りない（多少専門的） The central debate over macroeconomic policy is, of course, between Keynesians and Austerians. And at this point the Keynesians have overwhelmingly won the debate everywhere except where it matters – the intellectual basis for austerity economics has collapsed, but act

Destructive Creativity 破滅的な独創性 Still thinking my way through the Reinhart-Rogoff debacle and related issues, and I think there’s an important point to be made here about the state of macroeconomics. ずっとラインハート・ロゴフ論文の大失態とそれに関連する事柄について自分なりに考えているんだが、マクロ経済学の現状に関して語られるべき重要な点があると思う。 You can already see quite a few people reacting to this affair by declaring that macro is humbug, we don’t know anything, a

Data, Stimulus, and Human Nature/February 19, 2013, 9:34 am Data, Stimulus, and Human Nature データ、景気対策、そして人の性 David Brooks writes about the limitations of Big Data, and makes some good points. But he goes astray, I think, when he touches on a subject near and dear to my own data-driven heart: デヴィッド・ブルックスがビッグデータの限界について書いているが、いくつかいい点を突いている。でも、彼は、僕自身がデータを使用している親密な主題になると本質を外していると思う： For example, we’ve

When Confidence Hurts 信頼性が傷つく時 A skeptical correspondent asks whether I really truly believe what I’m saying in my post about how an attack by the bond vigilantes is actually expansionary when you have your own floating currency. How does this jibe with the experience of the Asian financial crisis of the 1980s, he asks? And do I really believe that Japan would be better off if markets became less

Bubble, Bubble, Conceptual Trouble/October 20, 2012, 9:46 AM Bubble, Bubble, Conceptual Trouble バブル、バブル、概念的問題 We’re living in the aftermath of a major financial crisis. Reinhart-Rogoff warned in advance that recovery was likely to be slow; so, with less historical detail, did I. And so it has proved. 我々は巨大な金融危機の余波の中に生きている。ラインハート・ロゴフ論文では、前もって、景気回復はスローなものになることを警告していた。歴史的詳細には立ち入っていないが、僕も警告していた。今、それは正

Power-Mad Conservatives　権力狂の保守派 Brad DeLong and others are having a lot of good clean fun ridiculing pundits who insisted, to the last, that their psychic guts perceived truths invisible to pollsters. And who knows? This ridicule may even serve a social purpose, making news organizations a bit less likely to treat these pundits as fonts of wisdom. ブラッド・デロング達が、最後まで、世論調査では見えない真実を捉えることができる念力を持っていると主張

Things That Aren’t Bubbles/October 22, 2012, 9:54 AM Things That Aren’t Bubbles バブルじゃないこと Noah Smith, who is a better human being than I am, wades through an anti-Krugman rant to find an interesting nugget: the claim that money is a bubble. It isn’t, of course; but my explanation of why it isn’t is a bit different from his, and has wider implications. 僕よりはいい人間であるノア・スミスがアンチ・クルーグマンのたわごとを調べ通して興味深い一致点

【The Guardian】Paul Krugman:'I'm sick of being Cassandra.I'd like to win for once' Paul Krugman:'I'm sick of being Cassandra.I'd like to win for once' もうカッサンドラの預言者やるのはうんざりしている。一度でいいから勝ってみたいですよ The American economist has a plan to escape the financial crisis, and it doesn't involve austerity measures or deregulating the banks. But will policy-makers, including our coalition government, heed his advi