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Tepid wages, participation mute celebration on US jobless rate

Bloomberg The US unemployment rate dipped below 4 percent for the first time in 17 years, but other details of the April jobs report kept any celebration in check. Despite reports of firms struggling to find skilled workers, average hourly earnings showed a deceleration, rising 0.1 percent from the prior month and 2.6 percent from a year earlier, both less ...

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Economics grapples with what causes recessions

Most of economics is pretty healthy as a discipline. But one branch has really been thrown for a loop — business cycle theory. The financial crisis of 2008 and Great Recession taught macroeconomists that they didn’t really understand the sources of recessions. The long, grinding stagnation that followed demonstrated that economies sometimes don’t bounce back as quickly or automatically as ...

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India’s slippery bond vigilante is back

The 10-year US bond yield breaking through the 3 percent danger level worries India, as it does every emerging market. Still, the price that sends policy makers in New Delhi and Mumbai into paroxysm isn’t that of global capital, but of a commodity: oil. With Brent crude flirting with $75 a barrel, the panic is already beginning to show. Crucial ...

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