Edward Conard

I debate @JasonFurman—Pres. Obama’s Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors—at Harvard over the effect of tax increases on the expected value of innovative risk-taking and the magnitude of changes needed to equilibrate America’s fiscal policy. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

Btw January 1926 and December 2025, 59.13% of US firms had negative total returns relative to T-bills. 46 firms accounted for half of the $91T in net wealth creation over the period, and 1,082 firms, 3.7%, accounted for 100% of net wealth creation. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

WTI is up ~70% since January, but still under $100 a barrel. US wholesale gasoline and jet fuel are up ~84%, and worryingly, wholesale diesel is up ~109%. Refinery margins are nearing 2022’s all-time high, ~$50 per barrel, vs. $20 per barrel in January edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

Canada's population fell by .2% or 103,504 people in 2025, as immigration policy changes curtailed inflows. Births fell short of deaths by 781 people in Q4. 83,168 permanent immigrants entered Canada in Q4, down ~ 20% y/y. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

In 2001, 48% of AI researchers were in industry; by 2019—two years after the landmark transformer paper—68% were. Over this period, the compensation gap btw industry and academia for top 1% researchers widened markedly, from ~$294k to ~$1.5mm annually. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

Taiwan's drone production increased from ~10,000 units in 2024 to ~135,000 last year. The country plans to be able to produce 180,000 “non-red” drones (those excluding any Chinese component) annually by the end of 2028. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

Reis compares the IMF’s 2019 forecasts of increases in the public debt over the next 5 years with the actual increases. In OECD countries where deficits turned out to be higher than the IMF expected, inflation also turned out to be unexpectedly higher. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

The Red Sea oil trade never recovered from the Houthi strikes. Regardless of its outcome, the Iran war itself will accelerate the rotation towards physical assets as nations move to localize, diversify and create redundancy in their energy supply. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

Despite the AI buildout and changes to tariff and immigration policy, key macro indicators were largely unchanged between 2024 and 2025. Overall consumer sentiment continues to decline despite a sharp increase in Republican sentiment after the election. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

Using internal Stripe payment data, Tedeschi finds that spending growth of households in low-income zip codes has outpaced that of households in high-income zip codes since 2023, thus showing no evidence of the “K-shaped economy” in the consumer sector. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

ATM’s reduced demand for tellers per bank branch, but this was offset by an increased number of branches due to deregulation. Kedrosky notes, “aggregate numbers can hide substitution.” Total teller jobs are down ~40% from their peak. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

American multinationals largely headquartered in the US booked $300B in profits in Ireland last year, generating $38–39B for the Irish Treasury, with ~ half coming from Apple, Microsoft and Eli Lilly. Happy Saint Patrick's Day! edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

The surge in German defense spending will contribute .5pp annually to German GDP growth by 2028, according to a UBS analysis. German remilitarization is also being supported by Middle Eastern armament demand. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

The research firm Gartner estimates that in 2025, capex spending on AI training and inference were approximately at par. Gartner forecasts that by 2029, inference capex spending will be nearly 2x that of training. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

The trade-weighted Yen has fallen by ~32% against G10 currencies since the start of 2020, and is now 1 percent under its previous low in July 2024. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

From March 1–15, the equity premium rose from 4.37% to 4.51% as oil rose to $100 per barrel. But a surge in the 10-year Treasury, from 3.97% on Feb. 27 to 4.28% on March 13, suggested “inflation fears are trumping other market concerns right now.” edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

Cumulating the growth rates from India’s National Account Statistics over the 2004-2025 period leads to the conclusion that the levels of real GDP and consumption are overstated by 22 and 31%, respectively, according to Arvind Subramanian. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

After Friday’s downward revision of Q4 GDP to 0.7%, the AI buildout’s capex appears to account for essentially all of Q4 GDP growth. Exclusive of investment in servers, GPUs, and related equipment, the economy grew .04pp - “statistical noise.” edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…

In 2025 New York City spent $81,705 per “street” homeless person, up 262% from 2019 whose numbers increased 26% during that period. This does not include spending on “sheltered” homeless, who are ~97% of the homeless population. edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/…