As many of the readers of this space undoubtedly will have come to realize; yours truly is a bit of a demographics wonk which probably goes a long way to characterize him except for the obvious fact that he is also, above all, an econ wonk.

As part of my upcoming master's thesis I am naturally trying to combine these traits and it should come as no surprise that the focus is on demographics and international capital flows. That will not be the topic of this entry however. Rather, I thought that I would plug a recent paper on global ageing [1] by Wolfgang Lutz Warren C. Sanderson, and Sergei Scherbov published in the brand new journal, Journal of Population Ageing, edited by the team of demographers, Sarah Harper and George Leeson, at the Oxford institute of Ageing (Oxford University). Also, this would naturally be a nice occasion to ever

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Markus Brunnermeier provides an excellent summary graph of the financial crisis, told in "spreads".

Figure 3 from Brunnermeier (2008): Interest Rate Spreads. The top panel shows the LIBOR-OIS spread (dark shaded area). The TED spread (LIBOR minus the Treasury bill rate) is given by the sum of two shaded areas. It also captures the fact that Treasury bonds are especially sought-after collateral in times of crisis. The top panel also shows the ABCP rate minus OIS spread, while the lower panel depicts the spread between mortgage backed repos and general collateral repos and the agency spread. Sources: Bloomberg, LehmanLive, and Federal Reserve Board.

From the conclusion to M.K. Brunnermeier, "Deciphering the Liquidity and Credit Crunch 2007-08," forthcoming Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2009, 23(1):

An increase in mortgage delinquencies due to a nationwide decline in housing prices was the trigger for a full-blown liquidity crisis that emerged in 2007

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By Claus Vistesen: Copenhagen

There are many perspectives through which to look at economic development and growth. Geography, institutions or perhaps just plain good old physical capital accumulation are all important parameters. This small piece suggests a further metric and attempts to frame the argument with Chile as a case study.

Specfifically, this note explains the process known as the demographic dividend and conceptualizes it in a Chilean context. The analysis shows how Chile during the last two decades has benefited from the dividend proxied by the increasingly favorable trend in overall age structure of the society. By some measures Chile’s demographic dividend is thus ending during these very years. Yet, by adapting a slightly broader definition of the optimal working age and subsequent productivity profile, it appears that Chile still finds itself in the proverbial sweet spot and will continue to do so for the next decade. Coupled with

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By Claus Vistesen: Copenhagen

There are many perspectives through which to look at economic development and growth. Geography, institutions or perhaps just plain good old physical capital accumulation are all important parameters. This small piece suggests a further metric and attempts to frame the argument with Chile as a case study.

Specfifically, this note explains the process known as the demographic dividend and conceptualizes it in a Chilean context. The analysis shows how Chile during the last two decades has benefited from the dividend proxied by the increasingly favorable trend in overall age structure of the society. By some measures Chile’s demographic dividend is thus ending during these very years. Yet, by adapting a slightly broader definition of the optimal working age and subsequent productivity profile, it appears that Chile still finds itself in the proverbial sweet spot and will continue to do so for the next decade. Coupled with

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Like I said in my weekend thematic summary I have been working on a country analysis/outlook for Chile. Now, why the heck am I writing about Chile now, you might ask. Clearly, some are already busy telling me to shut up all together, or to stop saying stuff about economies and regions of which, according to them, I know nothing about. I am afraid that those people won't be getting their way. I am far too nosy and curious to listen to such "suggestions".

In this first installment, I am looking at the more long term drivers of economic growth in Chile as well as I try to contextualize how demographics might assist us in our perspective on the economic facts. The background for my sudden interest in Chile (as well as in Thailand and Brazil) can be found here where Edward

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Article Source My previous post regarding government statistics elicited a lot of commentary, with a tremendous amount of vitriolic commentary directed at the current approach to calculating the CPI. Rather than provide more of my own thoughts on what constitutes an appropriate mix of theory and pragmatism, I will quote from the author whose work I had to read in graduate school, W. Erwin Diewert. From his entry in the 1998 Journal of Economic Perspectives which had a symposium on the Boskin commission report: Defining a true cost of living index must begin on the household level, and then move to the social level. The Konuis (1939) true cost of living index for a single household is defined as the ratio of the minimum costs of achieving a certain reference utility level in a base period, given the prices prevailing at that time, and at a later "current" period, ...

This post is really a supplement to Claus's post Thailand at the Crossroads, and a complement to Manuel's election coverage. Now Claus points out that Thailand is in the middle of its ongoing Demographic Transition, and at the high point of that favourable moment when what has become known to economists as the Demographic Dividend process is at its height.The demographic transition is - in simple language - a movement upwards in population median ages. Societies (one after another) move steadily from being high fertility, low life expectancy, low median age ones (think Niger, or Mali, or Uganda right now), to low fertility, high life expectancy, high median age ones (think Germany, Japan and Italy) in a more or less steady and ongoing fashion. We know of course what the starting point of this transition is (the above mentioned high fertility societies have a ...