Interesting reads from Dec 8

Interesting reads from the Net

1. Consumer credit declines for the 9th straight month - link

2. NY Fed remarks on lessons from the crisis - link

3. Credit/ Leverage and its role in creating financial crises over the years - link

I particularly liked this excerpt:
Long-run historical evidence therefore suggests that credit has an important role to play in central bank policy. Its exact role remains open to debate. After their recent misjudgements, central banks should clearly pay some attention to credit aggregates and not confine themselves simply to following targeting rules based on output and inflation.

4. The Simpson' paradox always fascinates me. This example uses unemployment rate comparisons between today and the 1981 recession - link

4b. This response by Andrew Gelman talks about when the comparison at the sub-group level is appropriate (when the definitions of the sub-groups being compared between the two samples are robust and more apples-to-apples) and also where the aggregate level is more appropriate (where the definitions have not remained stable - typically happens when the two samples are temporally divided - and therefore any comparison is not necessarily apples-to-apples) - link

Holidaying in India and just beginning to recover from the sensory overload (of family, friends, food, the media, the general environment). Really looking forward to the remaining two weeks.