Ep. 239: Thomas Drechsel on Measuring Political Pressure on Fed, Predicting Fed, and Better Nowcasts

Thomas Drechsel is Assistant Professor at the Economics Department of the University of Maryland. His research focuses on monetary policy, the role of commodities for emerging market economies, as well as real-time monitoring of economic activity. His work has been published in the Review of Economic Studies, the American Economic Journal and the Journal of Finance. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics. In this podcast we discuss:  

• How to measure political pressure on Fed 

• The Nixon and LBJ cases  

• Impact on inflation and growth 

• What about Trump? 

• What explains Fed actions and surprises? 

• Using NLP to better understand Fed behaviour 

• The problem with US GDP nowcasting models 

• Using Bayesian techniques to improve nowcasts 

• Books mentioned: One Trillion Dollars (Eschbach), Michael Lewis books, Lords of Finance (Ahamed), Slouching Towards Utopia (De Long), The Rise and Fall of American Growth (Gordon) 

You can follow Thomas here and here. 

(The commentary contained in the above article does not constitute an offer or a solicitation, or a recommendation to implement or liquidate an investment or to carry out any other transaction. It should not be used as a basis for any investment decision or other decision. Any investment decision should be based on appropriate professional advice specific to your needs.)