Podcast: Interviewed On Macro & Cheese

I was interviewed by Steven Grumbine for the Macro & Cheese podcast, discussing Modern Monetary Theory. Link: http://macroncheese.com/bond-markets-in-a-modern-money-economy-with-brian-romanchuk

Video On econ_platform Usage

Video of using the econ_platform, including grabbing data from the new Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database.

(Of course, Excel refused to cooperate...)

Platform Update: RBA Interest Rate Data

I've made a push to put my platform into a state where it could conceivably be used by other people. It is a long way from feature-complete, but it has now reached a state where it is clear how the code works. I've worked on adding the storage of series meta-data, and I used the interest rate data sets from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) as an example.

When Yield Curves Fail: Australian Experience

The belief that yield curve inversions forecast recessions fails most spectacularly in Australia in the post-1990 era. As shown above, the 3-month/10-year slope inverted multiple times in the post-1995 era. However, none of these inversions coincided with recessions in Australia (albeit financial turbulence did hit the country).

Underemployment And The Phillips Curve: Australian Experience

The relationship between labour market slack and inflation (typically referred to as the Phillips Curve) is complicated, as it depends upon the structure of economic institutions. The post-1990 era saw labour market reforms that led to widespread underemployment. This article summarises some points from the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) textbook Macroeconomics by Mitchell, Wray, and Watts (affiliate link). I replicated a chart of Australian data -- which of course meant that I needed to add support for data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on my research platform.

Python/R Programming Platform Functioning

I have been working heavily on my research platform; it has reached a stage where I can do most of my work with it. Which means that I can go back to economics analysis. It is probably too early for other people to start using it, but a Python programmer could probably get the code up and running. This article explains the current features of the platform, taken from https://github.com/brianr747/platform/blob/master/README.md.

At the end of this article, a R language usage example is given.

Adding DBNomics To A Python Research Platform

I bought a new laptop, and I am now migrating my platform to the new computer. Rather than copy as-is, my plan is to clean up the code base. As a result, I have created a new GitHub repository that will contain the package: https://github.com/brianr747/platform. My initial plan is to do the international charts for my recessions book using the new system, and I will probably get the bulk of the data from DB.nomics (I discussed DB.nomics earlier here). This article explains what this platform aims to do, and what it took to integrate the DB.nomics interface. (Since I spent the day programming, this article is brief.)