Economic Rigor

Lots of stories in the press about how the Housing market has peaked...According to my analysis, no sign of it so far. Still going up. Stats for this week. House Type Sample Average Min Max Change Average 2 Bedroom House 525      1,144,506.88           1,108,687.20    1,180,326.55 0.11% 3 Bedroom House 2082      1,243,947.12           1,222,428.55    1,265,465.69 0.51% 4 Bedroom House 1611      1,461,308.41           1,428,670.98    1,493,945.84 -0.25% Unit Type Average Min Max 2 Bedroom Unit 1440          825,667.85    ...

The ABS released their population report today. One of the things I like to check is if I was a single male between 25-39 (marriage age), which state would be the best to live in...i.e which state has more women (20-34) per male (25-39). And the results are: ACT:              1.0290  eligible females per eligible male Queensland:   1.0285  eligible females per eligible male Tasmania:      1.0257 eligible females per eligible male Victoria:         1.0177 eligible females per eligible male NSW:             1.0082 eligible females per eligible male SA:                 1.0073 eligible females per eligible male WA:            ...

Using my figures from the conference board again, I tracked the Greek economy from 1950-2015. It's been a bit of a basket case for a while, but the GFC really did kick their butt.  My boom to bust ratio for Greece is 27.5% (that is number of booms(Actual Growth>(Potential Growth+2*SD)) divided by number of busts(Actual Growth<(Potential Growth-2*SD)) Contrast that with Australia (69.5%) and the US (47%) By the way, Potential GDP is calculated using the (Average Labour Hours growth)+(Average Labour Productivity growth)

Been looking into Economic Growth statistics over the last 60 odd years. The conference Board publish the historical data which is pretty interesting. What I wanted to calculate was Output gaps (i.e The difference between Potential GDP Growth and Actual GDP growth, to kind of gain an insight into how Australia is doing. If Australia is doing poorly, it's actual GDP growth would be below the potential (I have classified a "Bust" as 2 Standard Deviations below the potential..if actual GDP growth is below that lower range, we are in potential recessionary conditions). Same with a Boom. (if actual GDP growth is above the 2 Standard Deviations above the potential, we are in Boom conditions). And the results are below As you can see, the Australian recovery from 2008's recessionary conditions hasn't been great. Only just heading back into the "Safe zone". Also shows we haven't had a "boom" year since 1998, though 2007 did come close. And tha...