+ Etienne de Callataÿ
WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE US ?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Rule of law (cf. Supreme Court, pardon right, …)
Migrants (cf. ICE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
Press
Independence of the administration (cf. head of Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Scientific research (cf. Harvard)
Environment
Public health
Minorities
…
WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE US ?
Also in economic terms
• Trade policy
Custom rights / tariff duties
• Fiscal (= budgetary) policy
• Expenditures/outlays (DOGE, …)
• Revenues / taxes
• Fiscal balance
• Monetary policy
Independence of the Central Bank (Federal Reserve / Jerome Powell)
• Labor market policy
migrants, trade unions, …
• Regulations
banks, environment, …
• …
WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE US ?
• Why ?
• Consequences ?
• Alternatives ?
+ Etienne de Callataÿ
etiennedecallatay@gmail.com
Not my choice, and with my
apologies
Marie Lucas + François Leurquin
NOT compulsory … but is this
the right criteria ? Education is
not about how to pass an exam
with 11/20
Teaching material
• The one of Helene Latzer and Christian Kiedaisch, with additional material in RED
• AND from time to time my own input
• Mind the role of PPT presentations
• Not deemed to make students' life easier
• Made to make teachers’ life easier !
• What matter most (not for the exam, but for your education) is what is not written
1 hour on Oct 20, 2025,
2 hours in January 2026,
3 hours in August 2026
… but knowing that it is a
little bit weird to use a
dictionary while it is
allowed to answer in
French !
MY REQUIREMENTS, MY COMMITMENTS, MY CONSTRAINTS, MY HOPE
• Requirement : SILENCE
• Commitment :
• Evaluation independent from attendance
• Free to just sit and sleep / watch what you want on your screen
• Eagerness to answer all your questions
• Available before / after teaching hours + via email
• Constraint :
Visiting lecturer / no office at the University
•
Hope :
• To be respectful
• To be pleasant to hear & to interact with
• To be stimulating
Beyond indicators, to study
how the economy is doing –
not limited to what can be
easily measured
Also indicators of well-being
(“beyond GDP”)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Source : FRED (Sept 9, 2025)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA#
Source : The Economist, October 4, 2023 – cf. Case & Deaton
(2023)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Source : Noah Smith, Globalization did not hollow out the American middle
class, May 8, 2025
=> “It depends” (Dani Rodrik)
Cf the 1:1 map (Lewis Carroll, Jorge Luis
Borges, Umberto Eco)
Economics is first about
understanding what is (was)
going on