Mike Konczal

Mike Konczal is director of Macroeconomic Analysis at the Roosevelt Institute, where he focuses on full employment, inequality, and the role of public power in a democracy. He is the author of the recent Freedom from the Market: America’s Fight to Liberate Itself from the Grip of the Invisible Hand, and a co-author, with Joseph Stiglitz, of Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy. A former financial engineer, his writing has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Vox, and more. A sought-after commentator on the U.S. economy, he has also appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, All Things Considered, Planet Money, Lovett or Leave It, and elsewhere.

I enjoy trying to make the most informative graphics for the monthly economic data releases while sharing the R code.

Show the code

library(tidyverse)
library(httr)
library(data.table)
library(magrittr)
library(ggridges)
library(lubridate)
library(janitor)
library(viridis)
library(scales)

cpi_data <- GET("https://download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/cu/cu.data.0.Current", user_agent("rortybomb@gmail.com")) %>%
  content(as = "text") %>%
  fread()
cpi_data <- cpi_data %>% clean_names()
cpi_data$value <- as.numeric(cpi_data$value)
cpi_data$series_id <- str_trim(cpi_data$series_id)
cpi_data$date <- paste(substr(cpi_data$period, 2,3), "01", substr(cpi_data$year, 3, 4), sep="/")
cpi_data$date <- as.Date(cpi_data$date, "%m/%d/%y")

series <- GET("https://download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/cu/cu.series", user_agent("rortybomb@gmail.com")) %>%
  content(as = "text") %>%
  fread()
series <- series %>% clean_names()
series$series_id <- str_trim(series$series_id)

items <- GET("https://download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/cu/cu.item", user_agent("rortybomb@gmail.com")) %>%
  content(as = "text") %>%
  fread()
series <- inner_join(series, items, by = c("item_code"))
cpi_data <- inner_join(cpi_data, series, by = c("series_id"))

cpi_weights <- read_csv(file = "data/inflation_weights.csv") %>% select(-year_weight)

cpi_data <- inner_join(cpi_data, cpi_weights, by = c("item_name"))
cpi_weights <- read_csv(file = "data/inflation_weights_2023.csv") %>% select(item_name, weight_2023 = weight, year = year_weight)
cpi_data <- left_join(cpi_data, cpi_weights, by = c("item_name", "year"))

cpi_data$weight <- ifelse(!is.na(cpi_data$weight_2023),cpi_data$weight_2023,cpi_data$weight)

### Make the graphic ###
median_terms <- read_csv("data/mediancpi_component_table.csv") %>% mutate(item_name = Component)

median <- cpi_data %>%  filter(item_name %in% median_terms$item_name | item_name == "Owners' equivalent rent of residences") %>%
  filter(period != "M13", seasonal == "S") %>%
  arrange(date) %>%
  group_by(item_name) %>%
  mutate(Pchange3 = (value/lag(value, 3)-1)) %>%
  ungroup() %>%
  group_by(date) %>%
  mutate(normalized = sum(weight)) %>%
  mutate(weightN = weight/normalized) %>%
  arrange(Pchange3) %>%
  mutate(cumsum = cumsum(weight)/100) %>%
  mutate(cumsumN = cumsum(weightN)) %>%
  ungroup() %>%
  mutate(Pchange3a = (1+Pchange3)^4-1)

start_month <- month(max(median$date))
quarters <- ((seq(start_month, start_month + 9, by=3) - 1) %% 12) + 1

#THIS IS THE GRAPHIC - 30 percent-trimmed distribution
median %>% mutate(dateF = as.factor(date)) %>%
  filter(cumsumN <= 0.85 & cumsum >= 0.15) %>%
  mutate(Pchange3a = (1+Pchange3)^4-1) %>%
  filter(date >= "2017-06-01") %>%
  filter(date != "2020-06-01") %>%
  filter(month(date) %in% quarters) %>%
  mutate(monthC = format(date, "%B, %Y")) %>%
  mutate(monthC = fct_reorder(monthC,date)) %>%
  mutate(monthCR = fct_rev(monthC)) %>%
  ggplot(aes(x = Pchange3a, y = monthCR, fill = stat(x))) +
  geom_density_ridges_gradient() +
  scale_fill_viridis(option = "H") +
  theme_ridges() +
  theme(legend.position = "none") +
  scale_x_continuous(labels = percent) +
  labs(title="Distribution of Price Increases Moved Out\nBut Now Returning Back",
       x="Three Month Percent Change", y="", caption="OER is treated as one value.\nMike Konczal, Roosevelt Institute") +
  theme(plot.title.position = "plot", legend.position = "none", legend.title = element_blank(),
        plot.title = element_text(size = 20,margin=margin(0,0,5,0)),
        plot.subtitle = element_text(size=13),
        plot.caption = element_text(size=10, face="italic"),
        axis.text.y = element_text(size=12, face="bold"),
        axis.text.x = element_text(size=12))

This is the distribution of the Cleveland Fed’s Median/Trimmed-Mean CPI price basket, using 3-month change annualized, with components whose expenditure weights fall above/below the 85/15th percentile of price changes removed. It moved out during the reopening, but is moving back now.

Here are some of the latest things I’ve been doing; you can find the full list of research, writings, and media around this website.

Date	Outlet	Title	Type
September 14, 2023	Planet Money	Wait, Did We Really Need To Raise Rates?	Podcast
September 08, 2023	Roosevelt Institute	Supply-Side Expansion Has Driven the Decline In Inflation	White Paper
July 21, 2023	The Nation	"Bidenomics" Vs. "Reaganomics"	Article
April 28, 2023	The Nation	The Revolutionary Potential Of the Inflation Reduction Act	Article
March 28, 2023	Why Is This Happening?	Wth Happened At Silicon Valley Bank?	Podcast
March 09, 2023	House Subcommittee Testimony	Inflation In 2023: Causes, Progress, and Solutions	White Paper

I’m often cited and quoted in coverage around the economy. Here’s some recent examples, with the full list here.

Date	Outlet	Title
September 14, 2023	Axios	1 Big Thing: Surging Supply Brought Inflation Down
September 11, 2023	Bloomberg	Five Things You Need To Know To Start Your Day
September 11, 2023	New York Times	How Goldilocks Came To the Us Economy
August 29, 2023	New York Times	A Sad Story: What Can We Learn From the 1970s?
August 03, 2023	New York Times	Is Good News Finally Good News Again?
August 02, 2023	Slow Boring	Why Did Inflation Fall?

Praise for Freedom From the Market:

“The Roosevelt Institute’s Konczal is one of the warriors in this fight, arguing fiercely for the need to set much narrower limits on what is left to markets than has been the case in recent decades. A powerful polemic.”
- Martin Wolf, Financial Times

“By identifying an alternative grammar, one that is grounded in the American past, Freedom from the Market provides a way out of the political cul-de-sac created by the failure of the market to deliver on its promises of ‘freedom.’”
- Molly Michelmore, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas

“Freedom from the Market is an impressive book, easily one of the best I’ve read in the past several years. I cannot recommend it highly enough.”
- Matt Mazewski, Commonweal

“terrific book.”
- Jamelle Bouie, New York Times

“Freedom from the Market has the potential to be a very important book, focusing attention on the contested, messy but crucially important intersection between social movements and the state. It provides a set of ideas that people on both sides of that divide can learn from, and a lively alternative foundation to the deracinated technocratic notions of politics, in which good policy would somehow, magically, be politically self supporting, that has prevailed up until quite recently. Strongly recommended.”
—Henry Farrell, Crooked Timber