Teaching Notes on Macroeconomic Indicators

 

August 1962, President Kennedy addresses the nation on the economy 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adFjyQzCin8

Regular visitors to my blog -- both of you? -- know that I often post presentations and other teaching materials, and encourage their free use by colleagues for your own teaching and other non-profit activities.

My visitors, my former students, and others who've been subjected to my presentations at conferences and other events know that I have a reputation for my slide decks -- whatever you think of their quality, there's surely a lot of slides!

I've been creating slides of one kind or another for almost 50 years. When I moved from plastic transparencies and some early software to PowerPoint, I began to collect slides by topic in large files I think of as libraries.

Over the next year or two I plan to post some of these libraries. To be clear, I don't use them directly for a class or other presentation. Too many slides!!! I go through, pick out the ones I want, and often freshen them up a bit.

Today, I'm presenting a 1500 slide library on macroecnomic indicators. Since it's a large file (about 275MB) I recommend downloading the file to a hard drive, then opening in PowerPoint. Notice that many of the slides have notes below the slides themselves with some discussion, relevant links, etc.

After some introductory material on (e.g.) units of observation, periodicity, stocks and flows, seasonal adjustment and so on, we cover:

• Basic demographics
• Prices and inflation
• Gross Domestic Product
• Employment and labor market indicators
• Incomes, Poverty and Wealth
• Interest Rates and other financial indicators

Other indicators -- notably housing and real estate data -- are coming, in other libraries.

If you look at today's offering you'll see that many of the slides could use some freshening.  Some haven't been updated for a decade, most need at least a year or two of freshening. But I think most of the structure and much of the discussion still work.

Why this library to begin with? For the better part of three decades I taught real estate and other business students. While I once taught a principles macro course to undergraduates (to the dismay of some of my DSGE-besotted macroeconomist friends!) this teaching material came out of the realization that most business students were not going to do much formal modeling in their careers, but would benefit immensely from understanding basic market mechanisms, gains from trade, and so on -- and that they would be confronted with data, macro and otherwise.

Several of my libraries address basic concepts, and other data sources. This deck owes a lot to my late friend and colleague Don Nichols, UW macroeconomist, who was a master at presenting basic macro data and telling clear stories about how the economy was evolving. I don't claim Don's expertise, but I learned a lot from his frequent sojourns to the business school and to other non-specialist audiences.

One reason I decided to post this library today is a little darker. Like many, I'm concerned about the future of our National Income and Product Accounts, our price and employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, our financial data from the Federal Reserve, the mother lode that comes from the Census Bureau; and dozens of other agencies.  

In addition to the data we use from the "Big Four" sources, we often rely on data on climate from NOAA, on health from the CDC, on crime from the FBI, and many other sources. For a deeper dive into the Federal Statistical System, go to StatsPolicy.gov for a good start.

What are the sources of the aforementioned concern? The U.S. statistical system, arguably the most extensive and sophisticated in the world, like any such system, has room for improvement. And there is a long history of elements of the system facing budget cuts and/or political pressure.  To date, these have, in the main, been successfully blunted. And we've had improvements, from the creation of the American Housing Survey in the 70s to the 2010 move from the Census Long Form to the American Community Survey, and the implementation of the Pulse Surveys during the COVID pandemic. But the general trend in recent decades has been for an erosion in the resources devoted to, and outputs of, government statistics, as docmented in a 2025 letter from a wide range of individual and institutional data experts and users available here, and especially in a 2024 report from the American Statistical Association, "The Nation's Data at Risk: Meeting America's Information Needs for the 21st Century," available here. NYT summary here.

That does not mean that there are not important areas for improvement and reform. Presently, many areas of data collection and analysis are under threat from cuts being implemented by the (ironically labeled) Department of Government Efficiency. More on DOGE in a future post, but for now note that DOGE's modus operandi  of "move fast and break things" is not designed to improve or reform statistical systems, but to disrupt. It is safe to say that the DOGE team is in many respects the Bizarro World version of the "Data at Risk" approach. You can find representative discussions of the DOGE approach to data here, here, here, here, and here.

[For those who did not grow up on U.S. comic books, Bizarro World is a fictional planet where everything is the opposite of Earth.]

As an academic, and primarily an empiricist to boot, it's fair to ask if I'm simply defending my own little world. Yes, but not "simply." "Data at Risk" is one convenient review of the importance of good public data for actually improving government efficiency, and also for business market research, risk analysis, invention and innovation, and economic development. Another review from a joint project of the Hamilton Project and the American Enterprise Institute, "In Order That They Might Rest Their Arguments on Facts: The Vital Role of Government-Collected Data" is available here.

Good data contributes to a functional polity. It's been well established that one of the characteristics of democracies is the provision of timely and accurate data.  Here is one example. Economist Luis Martinez checked reported GDP growth rates to those estimated from changes in the intensity of light emitted across different countries, a proxy for energy use. These satellite surveys of light intensity have been shown to be a good independent check on economic production. 

Martinez then uses data from Freedom House to identify countries as democracies or autocracies. The key finding from this figure, and from other analysis in his study, is that democracies usually produce GDP statistics that match up with satellite data, while autocracies often -- usually -- inflate their growth rates. Good data is a hallmark of free societies, while unfree governemnts put their thumbs on the scale.

Martinez's cross-country study is collaborated by many country analyses that document how autocrats seek to cook the books; presenting statistics that contradict the official, mis-measured data can even be criminalized. For just a few examples of counry studies, see the short list of readings below.

Finally, we'll note that good data has a great ROI. As the aforementioned Hamilton Project/AEI study notes, the principal statistical agencies spend less than 0.2 percent of the Federal budget:

From Eberstadt et al. (2017)

We need accurate, reliable data on a wide range of important topics. It is invaluable but it does not cost very much.

Selected References

Auerbach, Jonathan, Claire McKay Bowen, Constance F Citro, Steve Pierson, Nancy Potok, and Zachary Seeskin. "The Nation's Data at Risk: Meeting America's Information Needs for the 21st Century." Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the American Statistical Association, and George Mason University, June 2024.

Briviba, Andre, Bruno Frey, Louis Moser, and Sandro Bieri. "Governments Manipulate Official Statistics: Institutions Matter." European Journal of Political Economy 82 (2024): 102523.

Chen, Wei, Xilu Chen, Chang-Tai Hsieh, and Zheng Song. "A Forensic Examination of China’s National Accounts." Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring 2019: 77-141.

Coremberg, Ariel. "Measuring Argentina’s GDP Growth." World Economics 15, no. 1 (2014): 1-32.

Eberstadt, Nicholas, Ryan Nunn, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, and Michael R Strain. "“In Order That They Might Rest Their Arguments on Facts”: The Vital Role of Government-Collected Data." American Enterprise Institute and the Hamilton Project, 2017.

Georgiou, Andreas V. "The Manipulation of Official Statistics as Corruption and Ways of Understanding It." Statistical Journal of the IAOS 37, no. 1 (2021): 85-105.

Jerven, Morten. Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do About It. Cornell University Press, 2013.

Martinez, Luis R. "How Much Should We Trust the Dictator’s GDP Growth Estimates?". Journal of Political Economy 130, no. 10 (2022): 2731-69.

The Economist.  Turkey Grapples With Triple-Digit Inflation. July 14, 2022.

Thoughts on Wildfires, After Los Angeles

 

Los Angeles, January 2025 (iStock)

In January 2025, Los Angeles and its environs was hit by a series of destructive wildfires.

It was hardly the first destructive and fatal wildfire in California, or in the United States.

In February, Richard Green, Faculty Director of USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate, Kevork Zoryan, Chair of the Lusk Center Advisory Board, and Christopher Boone, Dean of USC's Sol Price School of Public Policy, convened a Lusk Center Advisory Board meeting to discuss ongoing efforts by the Center and by other USC academics, board members and other members of the greater LA real estate community, and local officials and community members to facilitate recovery and reconstruction, and to draw lessons to mitigate future wildfire losses.

I was invited to make a few remarks, on "Reconstruction and Development: A Few Observations from Abroad." Given the importance of the topic, of course I agreed, and prepared some slides to frame my remarks.

I discussed provisional lessons from a review of some experiences of reconstruction, focusing on lessons from other countries. Many of these experiences relate to reconstruction after conflict, rather than wildfires. My hope was to offer some general lessons, whatever the type of disaster, time and place.

Eight other academics and professionals made pesentations and/or participated in a panel discussion; many of the roughly hundred in-person participants offered their experience and expertise.

We were focused by the fact that a number of our colleagues had themselves lost homes; virtually everyone in the room had a relative or neighbor or friend who had suffered a loss.

I learned a lot from our meeting, and on my return to Newton (home of the Massachusetts outpost of the University of Wisconsin's Graaskamp Center, of which I am to my knowledge the sole faculty member and student) I dug a little deeper into the subject of wildfires, in the United States and elsewhere. My slide deck expanded somewhat.

For those who are interested you can download the current version here.  I say current version because this is a fast-moving topic and there is a lot of research coming out (much of it from USC, including a collaboration with colleagues at UCLA) which I have yet to absorb. As always, I encourage anyone who wants to use any of these materials in your own (not-for-profit) teaching or other presentations. Comments and, especially, corrections are always welcome.

International Perspectives from Two Recent Meetings

 

International Perspectives on the Direction of Housing Finance: A Meeting in Seoul

In November 2024 I was honored to be invited to join colleagues from South Korea and around the world to participte in the 10th Annual International Forum on Housing & Urban Finance, organized by the Korea Housing & Urban Gurarantee Corporation (HUG) and held in Seoul.

I later had the opportunity to visit HUG's Pusan headquarters, as well as the headquarters of Korea's other apex houisng finance institution, the Korea Housing Finance Corporation.

The detailed program from the conference can be accessed here, including slides from the various presentations that preceded discussions. The program includes updates on South Korea's economy and housing markets, as well as other global perspectives from my friend Marja Hoek-Smit and others.

I was asked to participate in a session focused on polarization, a subject of intense interest in Korea and in the United States; in fact in many countries. My material starts on page 20 of the detailed program; you can also acess the PowerPoint version, which includes many links and other details in the attached notes.

Ironically, several days after the Forum, and after my additional visits in Seoul and Pusan, it was while I was returning to the United States that we recieved word of South Korea's martial law. The duration of martial law itself was brief, but the run-up to that episode was complex, and as of this writing the full implications have yet to be understood.

Global Perspectives on Urban Development and Real Estate: A Meeting in West Palm Beach

In January 2025 we held one of two annual meetings of the Hoyt Institute. The January meeting mainly comprises presentations by newly selected Academic Fellows. This year we added a session entitled "Global Perspectives," which was intended to be a more wide-open particpatory discussion among all participants.

The majority of Hoyt Fellows reside in the U.S., and most are from there. Others have lived and worked in other countries. Whatever our origins, some of us focus on the U.S. in our research, teaching and policy work; others have contributed to these global perspectives. With input from several colleagues, I pulled together a collection of my teaching slides on some basics -- maps, demographic data, GDP, housing, and of course sources of data and references.

Our discussion was wide ranging, and a number of participants made comments and suggestions on additonal topics. After the meeting we added some material relevant to some of these points and questions. You can download the final (?) slides inspired by our session here.

While a bit disjointed -- think the Jeopardy category "Potpourri" -- readers will surely find some material they know well, but also some new tidbits, perhaps some inspiration for a research project or a teaching module. As always, colleagues should feel free to use any of these slides in their own teaching or other nonprofit activities.