Constantin Gurdgiev: True Economics

 A fascinating fresh survey of microeconomics literature on crypto currencies: "The Microeconomics of Cryptocurrencies" by Hanna Halaburda, Guillaume Haeringer, Joshua Gans, Neil Gandal (CESifo Working Paper 8841, 2021, NBER version link here: https://www.nber.org/papers/w27477).The paper is really too extensive to summarize here, so I encourage everyone interested in cryptos to read it. I can, however, offer some non-priority ordered comments on some of the passages I find interesting and...

Prior posts on COVID19 stats updates covered:Global data and trends: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/14221-covid19-update-worldwide-data.html;European & EU27 data and trends: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/14221-covid19-update-europe-and-eu27.html; Data and trends for the most impacted countries and regions: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/14221-covid19-update-most-impacted.html; Data on COVID19 dynamics in BRIICS countries:...

In previous posts, I covered the latest data for weekly Covid19 pandemic dynamics for:Global data and trends: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/14221-covid19-update-worldwide-data.html;European & EU27 data and trends: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/14221-covid19-update-europe-and-eu27.html; Data and trends for the most impacted countries and regions: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/14221-covid19-update-most-impacted.html; andData on COVID19 dynamics in...

 In previous posts, I covered the latest data for weekly Covid19 pandemic dynamics for:Global data and trends: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/14221-covid19-update-worldwide-data.html;European & EU27 data and trends: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/14221-covid19-update-europe-and-eu27.html; andData and trends for the most impacted countries and regions: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/14221-covid19-update-most-impacted.html.Now, let's take a closer look...

Previous posts on the COVID19 update covered global numbers and trends (https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/14221-covid19-update-worldwide-data.html) and European & EU27 trends (https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/14221-covid19-update-europe-and-eu27.html).Here are some comparatives across all countries with the highest rates of detected infections (> 5% of population):Note: I highlighted countries with > 10 million population.Another way of looking at this is to take...

 Summary table from the previous post covering worldwide trends (https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/14221-covid19-update-worldwide-data.html) puts Europe and EU 27 in the context of global trends:The chart next shows weekly data dynamics for new cases for EU27 and Europe:Both Europe and EU27 have experienced two waves of the pandemic, with the second wave characterized by two key features:Long and slow decline in the new cases counts, lasting from the peak of the wave around Week 45...

 Worldwide trends for COVID19 pandemic in terms of cases and deaths:There is some ambiguity in timing the waves of the pandemic. This ambiguity is driven by the dynamics of the new cases and, to a lesser extent, deaths. Globally, we have exited Wave 3 that started around Week 34 of 2020 and peaked in Week 1 of 2021. Promising dynamics aside, latest level of new infections remains at the levels well above Waves 1 and 2 peaks.Weekly death counts have also peaked in Week 3 of 2021, marking the...

Quite dramatic trends in terms of rising economic uncertainty over the last 21 years:And, not surprisingly, the rise of uncertainty in Europe, the U.S., and globally pre-dates the Covid19 pandemic. In fact, Europe has been experiencing dramatically elevated uncertainty levels since the start of the Euro area crisis, while the U.S. saw a virtually exponential rise in uncertainty from 2017 on. Global measures of uncertainty have been running high through 2016 and rose dramatically...

 In a recent post, I covered the impact of the failure at the Federal level to implement more robust measures on rents and tenure security for households (see: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/3221-cost-of-trumps-failures-to-act-on.html). Another interesting aspect of the U.S. experience during the pandemic relates to the policies concerning the closure of essential vs non-essential businesses. A recent (January 2021) study by Song, Hummy and McKenna, Ryan and Chen, Angela T. and...

 Having covered some core stats relating to the U.S. labor markets in previous 5 posts:Continued Unemployment Claims (https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/4221-us-labor-markets-americas-scariest.html);Labor force participation rate and Employment-to-Population ratio (https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/4221-us-labor-markets-americas-scariest_4.html); Non-farms payrolls (https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2021/02/4221-us-labor-markets-americas-scariest_16.html); New (initial)...