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Skanda Amarnath

Executive Director skanda@employamerica.org

About

As co-founder and Executive Director of Employ America, Skanda both leads our economic policy advocacy and ensures the long-term sustainability of the organization. Skanda’s commitment to our mission of full employment informs all of his work, from regular analyses of price and jobs data, to interpreting and forecasting market conditions, to developing new frameworks for Federal Reserve policy, strategy, and communication.

Skanda draws on a foundation of knowledge and career experience at the intersection of finance and policy. He was Vice President at MKP Capital Management operating as a market economist and strategist, and previously served as an Analyst within the Capital Markets function of the Research Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He has undergraduate degrees in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Columbia, and holds a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School.

A frequent media guest and commentator, Skanda has been featured or quoted in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Heatmap News, Politico, Vox, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the American Prospect, the Washington Post, and more. He is also a regular contributor to Bloomberg’s Odd Lots newsletter. Skanda is based in Jersey City, NJ, and enjoys cooking, tennis, and cycling in his spare time.

Skanda Amarnath's Work

692 Posts
Skanda Amarnath

The long-term goal of energy policy should encompass more than just security and decarbonization: the goal should be to ensure energy capacity abundance and stable energy cost.

As was warned in our May CPI preview (Peak Inflation? Not So Fast, My Friend. Upside Surprises Loom Large), the "peak inflation" calls were likely to prove premature. With the rapid rise of gasoline prices in the first half of June and passthrough from higher US benchmark natural

The White House should not use the refining capacity crunch as a reason to avoid grappling with the fragile state of crude oil supply, as it appears to be doing. In gasoline and other refined products, there are two related but separable sources of scarcity: crude oil and refining capacity.

Just as housing unit completions began to pick up in May, the pipeline of new housing units has already begun to fade. Builders are getting rationally spooked by tighter financial conditions and its real economic implications. While higher mortgage rates reduce the demand for investment (a new housing structure), higher

The Department of Treasury should be making use of the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) to target accelerated supply-side responses and insure critical producers against downside risks.

Given the discretion afforded the Secretary in utilizing the ESF, and the strong correlation between commodity price volatility and exchange rate volatility, the Secretary has the authority to establish a Supply Insurance and Acceleration Program for key commodities.

Summary Although neither the magnitude nor composition of last week's inflation print surprised us, especially given the knock-on effects from the 'Ukraine shock', they did surprise the CPI forecasting consensus. In response, Chair Powell and the rest of the committee will likely deliver two innovations: 1.

The White House and Congress should consider an “all-of-the-above” approach oriented around three objectives: (1) investments where productive capacity; (2) targeted policies for reducing sectoral demand; and (3) policies that facilitate greater competition and technological diffusion.

While it is true that base effects should create more favorable terrain for year-over-year headline CPI inflation readings to decline in this calendar year, the full   implications of the current commodity supply shocks stemming from the Ukraine invasion still remain underrated. It is plausible that we return or even surpass

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