We’re talking about the argument that the US economy has collapsed into so-called secular stagnation, a more or less permanent period of slow growth, high unemployment and very low interest rates. We’ve looked at several of the arguments put forth by the secular stagnationists, and in this post we’ll evaluate the claim that the plague of secular stagnation is upon us in part because central bankers have exhausted their arsenal of growth-enhancing weapons. read more »

In my last post we evaluated the first argument for secular stagnation – economic inequality – and found it to be completely irrelevant. This was true even though some sectors of the US population, from the middle of the middle class down, are clearly under stress. In this post we’ll take a look at the second argument: demographics. read more »

We’ve been talking about the phenomenon of “secular stagnation.” I didn’t think much of the provenance of the idea (post #1) and I pointed out (post #2) that there are far simpler explanations for the slow recovery from the Financial Crisis. In this post, however, I take a look at the rationale for the secular stagnation idea. read more »

Recent talk of secular stagnation has raised the question whether the US – and probably Europe and Japan – may not just be recovering slowly from a financial crisis, but may be permanently mired in an economic slump characterized by low growth, low inflation (or outright deflation), and stubborn, high unemployment. read more »