Archives: June 2007

Does GDP Matter Anymore?

Posted by: Michael Mandel on June 20, Categories: Trade

In the aftermath of the outsourcing story, the biggest surprise to me is how many people have argued, in effect, that mismeasurement of real GDP growth and domestic productivity is...

Import Price Release

Posted by: Michael Mandel on June 18, Categories: Trade

The BLS has just released its import and export price indexes for May 2007 . Now, this is a release that I never looked at before I did my last...

The BEA responds

Posted by: Michael Mandel on June 12, Categories: Trade

The BEA has published an FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) in response to my story. The fair summary of their response is that they do not dispute the problem, but they...

The Offshoring of R&D and Design

Posted by: Michael Mandel on June 11, Categories: Trade

One of the consequences of doing this story is that I now understand how the offshoring of R&D and design does (and doesn't) show up in the GDP and trade...

Tale of Three Prices

Posted by: Michael Mandel on June 11, Categories: Trade

I thought I'd pick on the furniture industry some more. Here's a graph of the price of imported furniture; the producer price of furniture from U.S. manufacturers; and the consumer...

Phantom GDP, Inflation, and Profits

Posted by: Michael Mandel on June 11, Categories: Macro

The phantom GDP effect does nothing to change consumer price inflation, which is measured by a separate survey. However, it does imply that inflation measured via the GDP deflator is...

Phantom GDP and Comparative Advantage

Posted by: Michael Mandel on June 09, Categories: Trade

By proposing the phantom GDP effect, I am not denying the normal benefits of trade, as believed by most economists. One potential benefit is the ability to shift more of...

Phantom GDP

Posted by: Michael Mandel on June 07, Categories: Trade

The story I promised you is here. To summarize, it looks like the official statistics have been miscounting the impact of offshoring. Unless I'm crazy, cost gains and productivity improvements...

Stay Tuned...

Posted by: Michael Mandel on June 06, Categories: Trade

..for the promised story. I think you will agree that the wait has been worthwhile....