Have the chances of a recession arriving in the next year decreased? Institute Executive Director Greg Brown laid out the conflicting economic indicators around this question and offered his analysis of the Aug. 4 employment report, which showed 187,000 jobs added in July. He also answered questions on the yield curve’s performance and the potential effects of Fitch’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating.
Join us for the Kenan Institute’s monthly virtual press briefing at 9 a.m. EDT this Friday, Aug. 4, as Executive Director Greg Brown discusses whether declining inflation has put an economic soft landing back on the table.
Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) Policy Fellow - and former Chief Economist of General Motors - Elaine Buckberg outlines how electric vehicles can save the economy as well as the environment.
Institute Chief Economist Gerald Cohen offered his analysis of the July 7 jobs report, which showed an additional 209,000 jobs in June, and discussed why the Fed may be looking at interest rates increases in the near future but not beyond that.
Institute Executive Director Greg Brown offered his analysis of the June 2 employment report and talked about why now may be a good time to tackle the country’s spending and revenue issues.
Chief Economist Gerald Cohen discusses why the uncertainty caused by the debt ceiling crisis is bad for the economy - regardless of how the situation ends.
Chief Economist Gerald Cohen outlines three possible paths for the U.S. economy in coming months, as well as the indicators to keep an eye on.
UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Christian Lundblad offered his analysis of the May 5 employment report, which showed employers adding 253,000 jobs in April, far above forecasts. He also answered questions about the Fed’s next move and what a sharp revision in March’s numbers might mean.
The economy continued to add jobs in March, but Chief Economist Gerald Cohen pointed out some underlying indicators that point to a slowdown. Also: effects from March’s bank collapses.
Kenan Institute Executive Director Greg Brown discussed the 311,000 jobs that the economy added in February during the institute’s monthly briefing March 10 and answered questions about labor participation rates and news of trouble at Silicon Valley Bank.
Kenan Institute Chief Economist Gerald Cohen explains why we're doubling down on our recessionary forecasts.
Kenan Institute Chief Economist Gerald Cohen discussed the 517,000 jobs that employers added in January during the institute’s monthly economic briefing Feb. 3 and answered questions from the press on where workers to fill those jobs are coming from.
2022 was a tumultuous year: NASDAQ, a tech-heavy stock index, closed the year down more than 30%; inflation proved more stubborn than policymakers initially thought and reached 40-year highs; Russia invaded Ukraine, sending commodity prices even higher; and central banks cranked up rates in response, the Federal Reserve raising interest rates at an unprecedented pace in recent history from around zero to over 4%. As we entered 2023, the global economy stood “on a razor’s edge,” the World Bank warned in its latest projections. Add to that a divided Congress with razor-thin majorities, political wrangling over the debt ceiling, and increasingly frequent catastrophic weather events, and it leaves one wondering where we are all headed.
Join us for the Kenan Institute’s virtual press briefing at 9 a.m. EST this Friday, Feb. 3, as we provide instant analysis following the latest employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Institute Chief Economist Gerald Cohen will offer his insights and answer questions from the audience.
In kicking off the new year, we at the Kenan Institute want to highlight five topics we anticipate will be top of mind for business leaders and policymakers during the 12 months ahead.
Join us for the Kenan Institute’s virtual press briefing at 9 a.m. EST this Friday, Jan. 6, as we provide instant analysis following the latest employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Institute Chief Economist Gerald Cohen will offer his insights and answer questions from the audience.
Chief Economist Gerald Cohen discussed the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ fresh employment report and what it means for the U.S. economy during the Kenan Institute’s monthly economic briefing Dec. 2. Cohen also discussed the inversion of the yield curve.
Join us for the Kenan Institute’s virtual press briefing at 9 a.m. EST this Friday, Dec. 2, as we sort it all out and provide instant analysis following the latest employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Institute Chief Economist Gerald Cohen will offer his insights and answer questions from the audience.
China’s remarkable economic transition was going to face slowing growth at some point, but misallocation of resources and the country’s zero-COVID policy further complicate the picture.
A new, data-driven method of looking at regional economies in more detail will enable a richer discussion of the U.S. economy as a whole and provide forecasts for decision-makers in business and government.
Economists and investors traditionally see uncertainty as a bad thing that suppresses growth and valuations, but new research shows that downstream uncertainty from customers in the U.S. supply chain can foretell expansion for firms and the economy.
Kenan Institute Executive Director Greg Brown discussed the Federal Reserve’s next move after the Sept. 2 employment report showed slowing but still strong job growth. Brown predicted that the Fed, to protect its reputation as an inflation fighter, would more likely overshoot than come up short in using higher interest rates to tamp down rising prices. He also answered questions from the media on how the global nature of inflation limits the Fed’s effectiveness as well as what can be expected for local and North Carolina labor markets.
July employment numbers suggest that the economy isn’t heading into recession but instead is accelerating as the third quarter begins, Chief Economist Gerald Cohen said during the institute’s monthly economic briefing Aug. 5. “It’s still post-COVID recovery, but … we’ve surpassed the pre-COVID levels by 32,000,” Cohen said, as reported by the Triangle Business Journal.
The U.S. economy added 528,000 jobs in July, an unexpectedly strong number that Kenan Institute Chief Economist Gerald Cohen discussed during the Kenan Institute’s economic briefing Aug. 5. Cohen also answered questions from the media about the shifting balance of power between employers and employees, the labor force shortage and what the news means for North Carolina businesses.
Three institute-associated experts provided analysis for the July 30 edition of WRAL-TV’s “On the Record” news program. In a segment on dwindling child care options in the Raleigh area, Director of Research Paige Ouimet talked about how child care access affects the ability of women to work.
Employment numbers have remained strong recently even as other economic indicators have faltered. We’ll discuss whether the trend continues when the Kenan Institute’s economic briefing returns at 9 a.m. EDT this Friday, Aug. 5, after the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its monthly jobs report.
GDP, the broadest measure of economic output, contracted for the second straight quarter, stoking fears that the economy is already in a recession — and has been since the beginning of the year. But the guts of the GDP report coupled with continued strong job growth and decent consumer spending suggest that the expansion remains on track. While the official arbiters of recessions are likely to agree with me — they don’t look at GDP but rather measures like job creation — what really matters to households and businesses is whether their spending power or foot traffic is drying up.
A surprisingly strong jobs report for June only adds to the difficulty of getting a read on the U.S. economy, writes Dan Barkin on the Business North Carolina site. He cites statistics offered by UNC Kenan-Flagler Professor Christian Lundblad in the institute’s July 8 economic briefing and notes Lundblad’s opinion that a “real” recession, rather than a technical recession, is more likely to arrive in early to mid-2023.
Friday morning’s employment report beat expectations, showing that the U.S. economy added 372,000 jobs in June. That runs counter to other economic indicators at a time when high inflation is hurting consumers’ wallets and some see a recession on the horizon.
UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Professor Camelia Kuhnen is an expert in corporate finance, behavioral finance and neuroeconomics, the application of neuroscience tools and methods to economic research. As many question whether a recession is on the way, she answers some questions about how the most notable consumer confidence surveys differ and whether Americans are prone to economic gloominess.
Institute Chief Economist Gerald Cohen spoke to both WRAL-TV and WTVD-TV on July 5, saying the potential downside of a recent decrease in gasoline prices is that it may reflect concerns in the markets that the economy is going into recession. “Economic activity slows, gasoline demand slows,” Cohen said. “If [prices are] coming down because people think we’re in a recession, then that’s bad.”