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Bùi Thị Vân Thiện đang tìm kiếm từ khóa The business cycle is primarily concerned with changes in the level of overall prices over time. được Update vào lúc : 2022-10-14 02:04:12 . Với phương châm chia sẻ Bí quyết Hướng dẫn trong nội dung bài viết một cách Chi Tiết Mới Nhất. Nếu sau khi tham khảo tài liệu vẫn ko hiểu thì hoàn toàn có thể lại Comments ở cuối bài để Admin lý giải và hướng dẫn lại nha.

How should a government balance risk-sharing and redistributive concerns with the need to provide incentives for investment? Should they tax firm profits or individual savings, or simply levy lump-sum transfers? I address these questions in an environment with entrepreneurs and workers in which output is subject to privately observed shocks and firm owners can both misreport profits and abscond with a fraction of assets. When frictions in financial markets restrict private risk-sharing, the stationary efficient allocation may be implemented in a competitive equilibrium with collateral constraints using (occupation-specific) linear taxes on savings and profits and lump-sum transfers to newborns. Further, the two taxes serve distinct roles and in general differ from one another. The savings tax affects consumption smoothing and may be positive or negative depending on the strength of general equilibrium effects, while the profits tax shares risk between the government and entrepreneurs, is unambiguously positive, and depends solely on the degree of frictions in financial markets. Read More

What is meant by the business cycle?What are the 4 cycles of the business cycle?What is the business cycle quizlet?In which stage of business cycle the price is highest?

Takushi Kurozumi Willem Van Zandweghe

Should monetary policy offset the effects of labor supply shocks on inflation and the output gap? Canonical New Keynesian models answer yes. Motivated by weak labor force participation during the pandemic, we reexamine the question by introducing labor force entry and exit in an otherwise canonical model with sticky prices and wages. The entry decision generates an employment channel of monetary policy, by which a decline in employment raises wage growth. Consequently, a labor supply shock to the value of nonparticipation in the labor market induces a policy trade-off between stabilization of the employment gap and wage growth. For an adverse labor supply shock, optimal policy dampens the decline in employment to rein in wage growth, which entails a period of higher inflation and a positive output gap. A welfare analysis of policy rules shows that monetary policy should not lean against the employment gap. Read More

Ana Beatriz Galvao James Mitchell

Economic statistics are commonly published without estimates of their uncertainty. We conduct two waves of a randomized controlled online experiment to assess if and how the UK public understands data uncertainty. A control group observes only the point estimate of GDP. Treatment groups are presented with alternative qualitative and quantitative communications of GDP data uncertainty. We find that most of the public understands that GDP numbers are uncertain. Quantitative communications of data uncertainty help align the public’s subjective probabilistic expectations of data uncertainty with objective estimates, but do not decrease trust in the statistical office. Read More

Takushi Kurozumi Willem Van Zandweghe

Should monetary policy offset the effects of labor supply shocks on inflation and the output gap? Canonical New Keynesian models answer yes. Motivated by weak labor force participation during the pandemic, we reexamine the question by introducing labor force entry and exit in an otherwise canonical model with sticky prices and wages. The entry decision generates an employment channel of monetary policy, and a labor supply shock to the value of nonparticipation in the labor market induces a policy trade-off between stabilization of the employment gap and wage growth. For an adverse labor supply shock, optimal policy dampens the decline in employment to rein in wage growth, which entails a period of higher inflation and a positive output gap. A welfare analysis of policy rules shows that monetary policy should not lean against the employment gap. Read More

Mathieu Pedemonte Juan Herreno

We study the differential regional effects of monetary policy exploiting geographical heterogeneity in income across cities in the United States. We find that prices and employment in poorer cities react more to monetary policy shocks. The results for prices hold for a wide range of narrow consumer expenditure categories. The results are consistent with New Keynesian models that allow for a differential share of hand-to-mouth consumers across regions, but not with models in which regions have different slopes of the Phillips curve. We show that an increase in heterogeneity across cities amplifies the effect of monetary policy on prices and employment. Read More

Pierlauro Lopez David Lopez Salido Francisco Vazquez Grande

We propose a novel approximation of the risky steady state and construct first-order perturbations around it for a general class of dynamic equilibrium models with time-varying and non-Gaussian risk. We offer analytical formulas and conditions for their local existence and uniqueness. We apply this approximation technique to models featuring Campbell-Cochrane habits, recursive preferences, and time-varying disaster risk, and show how the proposed approximation represents the implications of the model similarly to global solution methods. We show that our approximation of the risky steady state cannot be generically replicated by higher-order perturbations around the deterministic steady state, which cannot account well for the effects of risk in our applications even up to third order. Finally, we argue that our perturbation can be viewed as a generalized version of the heuristic loglinear-lognormal approximations commonly used in the macro-finance literature. Read More

James Mitchell Aubrey Poon Dan Zhu

Quantile regression methods are increasingly used to forecast tail risks and uncertainties in macroeconomic outcomes. This paper reconsiders how to construct predictive densities from quantile regressions. We compare a popular two-step approach that fits a specific parametric density to the quantile forecasts with a nonparametric alternative that lets the 'data speak.' Simulation evidence and an application revisiting GDP growth uncertainties in the US demonstrate the flexibility of the nonparametric approach when constructing density forecasts from both frequentist and Bayesian quantile regressions. They identify its ability to unmask deviations from symmetrical and unimodal densities. The dominant macroeconomic narrative becomes one of the evolution, over the business cycle, of multimodalities rather than asymmetries in the predictive distribution of GDP growth when conditioned on financial conditions. Read More

Fernando Barros Jr Fabio Gomes Andre Victor D Luduvice

How can we measure the welfare benefit of ongoing stabilization policies? We develop a methodology to calculate the welfare cost of business cycles taking into account that observed consumption is partially smoothed. We propose a decomposition that disentangles consumption in a mix of laissez-faire (absent policies) and riskless components. With a novel identification strategy, we estimate the span of stabilization power. Our results show that the welfare cost of total fluctuations is 11 percent of lifetime consumption, of which 82 percent is smoothed by the status quo policies, yielding a residual 1.8 percent of consumption to be tackled by policymakers. Read More

Gustavo de Souza Andre Victor D Luduvice

In the US, unemployed workers must satisfy two requirements to receive unemployment insurance (UI): a tenure requirement that stipulates the minimum qualifying work spell and a monetary requirement that determines a past minimum wage. This paper develops a heterogeneous agents model with history-dependent UI benefits in order to quantitatively obtain an optimal UI program design. We first conduct an empirical analysis using the discontinuity of UI rules state borders and find that both the monetary and the tenure requirement reduce unemployment. The monetary requirement decreases the number of employers and the share of part-time workers, while the tenure requirement has the opposite effect. We then use a quantitative model to rationalize these results. When the tenure requirement is long, workers tend to accept more low paying jobs to become eligible for UI sooner and to protect themselves from risk, while the monetary requirement works conversely. We show that, because it mitigates moral hazard, the monetary requirement can generate higher welfare levels than an increase in the length of the tenure requirement. Read More

Mark Bils Baris Kaymak Kai Jie Wu

Knowing the degree of substitutability between schooling groups is essential to understanding the role of human capital in income differences and to assessing the economic impact of such policies as schooling subsidies, immigration systems, or redistributive taxes. We derive a lower bound for the substitutability required for worldwide growth in real GDP from 1960 to 2010 to be consistent with a stable wage premium for schooling despite the rapid growth in schooling, assuming no exogenous worldwide regress in the technology frontier for workers with only primary schooling. That lower bound for the long-run elasticity of substitution is about 4, which is far higher than values commonly used in the literature. Given our bound, we reexamine the importance of human capital in cross-country income differences and the roles of school quality versus the skill bias of technology in greater efficiency gains from schooling in richer countries. Read More

Gary Koop Stuart McIntyre James Mitchell Aubrey Poon

Recent decades have seen advances in using econometric methods to produce more timely and higher-frequency estimates of economic activity the national level, enabling better tracking of the economy in real time. These advances have not generally been replicated the sub–national level, likely because of the empirical challenges that nowcasting a regional level presents, notably, the short time series of available data, changes in data frequency over time, and the hierarchical structure of the data. This paper develops a mixed– frequency Bayesian VAR model to address common features of the regional nowcasting context, using an application to regional productivity in the UK. We evaluate the contribution that different features of our model provide to the accuracy of point and density nowcasts, in particular the role of hierarchical aggregation constraints. We show that these aggregation constraints, imposed in stochastic form, play a key role in delivering improved regional nowcasts; they prove to be more important than adding region-specific predictors when the equivalent national data are known, but not when this aggregate is unknown. Read More

Stephan D Whitaker

This paper documents several facts about internal migrants in the US that underlie substantial areas of economic research and policy making, but are rarely directly published. Using a large-sample, 23-year panel, the Federal Reserve Bank of Tp New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel, I estimate the distribution of changes in local labor market conditions experienced by people who move to a different labor market. Net migration favors local labor markets with lower unemployment and faster job growth, but gross flows toward weaker labor markets are almost as large as the flows toward stronger labor markets. During recessions, net flows temporarily favor weaker labor markets. Migrants frequently choose destinations with similar labor market conditions rather than moving to the markets with the highest growth or lowest unemployment the time of their move. A hypothesis that personal financial health improves for people moving to tight local labor markets (or deteriorates for migrants to slack labor markets) is only partially supported in the data. Migrants to low-unemployment and high-employment growth regions have higher homeownership rates after they move. However, there are not clear advantages or disadvantages for migrants to strong or weak labor market regions as measured by credit scores, consumption, bankruptcy, or foreclosure. Read More

Ina Hajdini

The paper considers a New Keynesian framework in which agents form expectations based on a combination of mis-specified forecasts and myopia. The proposed expectations formation process is found to be consistent with all three empirical facts on consensus inflation forecasts, namely, that forecasters under-react to ex-ante forecast revisions, that forecasters over-react to recent events, and that the response of forecast errors to a shock initially under-shoots but then over-shoots. The paper then derives the general equilibrium solution consistent with the proposed expectations formation process and estimates the model with likelihood-based Bayesian methods, yielding three novel results: (i) The data strongly prefer the combination of autoregressive mis-specified forecasting rules and myopia over other alternatives; (ii) The best fitting expectations formation process for both households and firms is characterized by high degrees of myopia and simple AR(1) forecasting rules; (iii) Frictions such as habit in consumption, which are typically necessary for models with Full-information Rational Expectations, are significantly less important, because the proposed expectations generate substantial internal persistence and amplification to exogenous shocks. Simulated inflation expectations data from the estimated general equilibrium model reflect the three empirical facts on forecasting data. Read More

Yu Bai Andrea Carriero Todd E Clark Massimiliano Marcellino

In this paper we propose a hierarchical shrinkage approach for multi-country VAR models. In implementation, we consider three different scale mixtures of Normals priors — specifically, Horseshoe, Normal- Gamma, and Normal-Gamma-Gamma priors. We provide new theoretical results for the Normal-Gamma prior. Empirically, we use a quarterly data set for the G7 economies to examine how model specifications and prior choices affect the forecasting performance for GDP growth, inflation, and a short-term interest rate. We find that hierarchical shrinkage, particularly as implemented with the Horseshoe prior, is very useful in forecasting inflation. It also has the best density forecast performance for output growth and the interest rate. Adding foreign information yields benefits, as multi-country models generally improve on the forecast accuracy of single-country models. Read More

Gary Koop Stuart McIntyre James Mitchell Aubrey Poon

In the US, income and expenditure-side estimates of GDP (GDPI and GDPE) measure "true" GDP with error and are available a quarterly frequency. Methods exist for using these proxies to produce reconciled quarterly estimates of true GDP. In this paper, we extend these methods to provide reconciled historical true GDP estimates a monthly frequency. We do this using a Bayesian mixed frequency vector autoregression (MF-VAR) involving GDPE, GDPI, unobserved true GDP, and monthly indicators of short-term economic activity. Our MF-VAR imposes restrictions that reflect a measurement-error perspective (that is, the two GDP proxies are assumed to equal true GDP plus measurement error). Without further restrictions, our model is unidentified. We consider a range of restrictions that allow for point and set identification of true GDP and show that they lead to informative monthly GDP estimates. We illustrate how these new monthly data contribute to our historical understanding of business cycles and we provide a real-time application nowcasting monthly GDP over the pandemic recession. Read More

Andrea Carriero Todd E Clark Massimiliano Marcellino

Carriero, Clark, and Marcellino (2022, CCM2020) used large BVAR models with a factor structure to stochastic volatility to produce estimates of time-varying international macroeconomic uncertainty and assess uncertainty's effects on the global economy. The results in CCM2020 were based on an estimation algorithm that has recently been shown to be incorrect by Bognanni (2022) and fixed by Carriero, et al. (2022). In this note we use the algorithm correction of Carriero, et al. (2022) to correct the estimates of CCM2020. Although the correction has some impact on the original results, the changes are small and the key findings of CCM2020 are upheld. Read More

Ana Beatriz Galvao James Mitchell

Economic statistics are commonly published without any explicit indication of their uncertainty. To assess if and how the UK public interprets and understands data uncertainty, we conduct two waves of a randomized controlled online experiment. A control group is presented with the headline point estimate of GDP, as emphasized by the statistical office. Treatment groups are then presented with alternative qualitative and quantitative communications of GDP data uncertainty. We find that most of the public understands that uncertainty is inherent in official GDP numbers. But communicating uncertainty information improves understanding. It encourages the public not to take estimates face-value, but does not decrease trust in the data. Quantitative tools to communicate data uncertainty - notably intervals, density strips, and bell curves - are especially beneficial. They reduce dispersion of the public’s subjective probabilistic expectations of data uncertainty, improving alignment with objective estimates. Read More

Michael D Bordo Joseph G Haubrich

Does the yield curve's ability to predict future output and recessions differ when interest rates and inflation are low, as in the current global environment? We explore the issue using historical data going back to the 19th century for the US. This paper is similar in spirit to Ramey and Zubairy (2022), who look the government spending multiplier in times of low interest rates. If anything, the yield curve tends to predict output growth better in low interest rate environments, though this result is stronger for RGDP than for IP. Read More

Bernardo Candia Mathieu Pedemonte

Flexible exchange rates can facilitate price adjustments that buffer macroeconomic shocks. We test this hypothesis using adjustments to the gold standard during the Great Depression. Using prices the goods level, we estimate exchange rate pass-through. Using novel monthly data on city-level economic activity, combined with employment composition and sectoral export data, we show that American exporting cities were significantly affected by changes in bilateral exchange rates. With those results we calibrate a general equilibrium model to obtain aggregate effects from cross-sectional estimates. We show that the gold standard deepened the Great Depression, and abandoning it was a key driver of the economic recovery. Read More

Chengcheng Jia Shijun Gu

We study China’s state-owned enterprises (SOE) reform with a focus on the corporatization of SOEs. We first empirically document that small SOEs are more likely to exit or become privatized, whereas big SOEs are more likely to be corporatized while remaining under state ownership. We then build a heterogeneous-firm model featuring financial frictions, endogenous entry and exit, and optimal firm-type choices. Our calibrated model suggests that in the long run, the SOE reform increases the aggregate output by facilitating resource reallocation to the private sector. Along the transition, the corporatization option leads to higher aggregate output than the privatization-only policy by giving a higher financing capacity to more productive incumbent SOEs. Read More

Gee Hee Hong Matthew Klepacz Ernesto Pasten Raphael S Schoenle

This paper evaluates the informativeness of eight micro pricing moments for monetary non-neutrality. Frequency of price changes is the only robustly informative moment. The ratio of kurtosis over frequency is significant only because of frequency, and insignificant when non-pricing moments are included. Non-pricing moments are additionally informative about monetary non-neutrality, indicating potential omitted variable bias and the inability of pricing moments to serve as sufficient statistics. In contrast to existing theoretical work, this ratio has an ambiguous relationship with monetary non-neutrality in a quantitative menu cost model. We show which modeling ingredients explain this discrepancy, providing guidance on modeling choices. Read More

Pierlauro Lopez

More than 20 years of financial market data suggest a term structure of the welfare cost of economic uncertainty that is downward-sloping on average, especially during downturns. This evidence offers guidance in selecting a model to study the benefits of macroeconomic stabilization from a structural perspective. The addition of nonlinear external habit formation to a textbook monetary model can rationalize the evidence. The model is observationally equivalent in its quantity implications to a standard New Keynesian model with CRRA utility, but the optimal policy prescription is overturned. In the model the central bank should prioritize removing consumption volatility (a targeting of risk premia) over filling the gap between consumption and its flexible-price counterpart (inflation targeting). Read More

Tom Phelan Alexis Akira Toda

We analyze equilibrium behavior and optimal policy within a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered epidemic model augmented with potentially undiagnosed agents who infer their health status and a social planner with imperfect enforcement of social distancing. We define and prove the existence of a perfect Bayesian Markov competitive equilibrium and contrast it with the efficient allocation subject to the same informational constraints. We identify two externalities, static (individual actions affect current risk of infection) and dynamic (individual actions affect future disease prevalence), and study how they are affected by limitations on testing and enforcement. We prove that a planner with imperfect enforcement will always wish to curtail activity, but that its incentives vanish as testing becomes perfect. When a vaccine arrives far into the future, the planner with perfect enforcement may encourage activity before herd immunity. We find that lockdown policies have modest welfare gains, whereas quarantine policies are effective even with imperfect testing. Read More

Fernando Barros Jr Fabio Gomes Andre Victor D Luduvice

How can we measure the welfare benefit of ongoing stabilization? We develop a methodology to calculate the welfare cost of business cycles taking into account that observed consumption is partially smoothed. We propose a decomposition that disentangles consumption in a mix of laissez-faire (absent policies) and riskless components. With a novel identification strategy, we estimate the span of stabilization power. Our results show that the welfare cost of total fluctuations is 5.81 percent of lifetime consumption, in which 80 percent is smoothed by the status quo, yielding a residual 1.05 percent to be tackled by policy. Read More

Anantha Divakaruni Peter Zimmerman

In April 2022, the US government sent economic impact payments (EIPs) directly to households, as part of its measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic. We characterize these stimulus checks as a wealth shock for households and examine their effect on retail trading in Bitcoin. We find a significant increase in Bitcoin buy trades for the modal EIP amount of $1,200. The rise in Bitcoin trading is highest among individuals without families and exchanges catering to nonprofessional investors. We estimate that the EIP program has a significant but modest effect on the US dollar–Bitcoin trading pair, increasing trade volume by about 3.8 percent. Trades associated with the EIPs result in a slight rise in the price of Bitcoin of 7 basis points. Nonetheless, the increase in trading is small compared to the size of the stimulus check program, representing only 0.02 percent of all EIP dollars. We repeat our analysis for other countries with similar stimulus programs and find an increase in Bitcoin buy trades in these currencies. Our findings highlight how wealth shocks affect retail trading. Read More

Tom Phelan

Business owners in the United States are disproportionately represented among the wealthy and are exposed to substantial idiosyncratic risk. Further, recent evidence indicates that business income primarily reflects returns to the human capital of the owner. Motivated by these facts, this paper characterizes stationary efficient allocations and optimal linear taxes on income and wealth when business income depends on innate ability, luck, and the past effort of the owner. I first show that in stationary efficient allocations, more productive entrepreneurs typically bear more risk and the distributions of consumption and firm size are approximately Pareto, with the tail of the latter typically thicker than that of the former. I then characterize optimal linear taxes when owners may save in a risk-không lấy phí bond and trade shares in their businesses. The optimal utilitarian policy calls for separate taxes on firm profits, capital income, and wealth, serving distinct purposes. The tax on profits plays a redistributive role, the tax on capital income affects the incentives to retain equity and exert effort, and the tax on wealth affects the degree of consumption smoothing over time. Read More

Allan Dizioli Roberto Pinheiro

In this Commentary, we show how the interpretation of test results is affected by a test’s reliability rate. Moreover, we discuss how test fallibility may affect the use of tests as a tool to curb the spread of a disease. In particular, we show how administering inexpensive and less precise tests that can be conducted multiple times may be a more efficient way of curbing the pandemic than administering expensive more precise tests once. Read More

Ben R Craig Tom Phelan Jan Peter Siedlarek Jared Steinberg

We compare two types of models used to predict the spread of the coronavirus, both of which have been used by government officials and agencies. We describe the nature of the difference between the two approaches and their advantages and limitations. We compare examples of each type of model—the University of Washington IHME or “Murray” model, which follows a curve-fitting approach, and the Ohio State University model, which follows a structural approach. Read More

Short-time compensation is a type of unemployment insurance program that gives employers an alternative to layoffs. Such programs benefit workers, employers, and the overall economy, but only about half of US states offer them. Read More

One anticipated effect of the 2022 tax cuts was to stimulate business investment. But the two provisions work in opposite directions, and that’s likely to keep investment lower than it would have been without the reform. Read More

Patrick J Kehoe Pierlauro Lopez Virgiliu Midriga Elena Pastorino

Although a credit tightening is commonly recognized as a key determinant of the Great Recession, to date, it is unclear whether a worsening of credit conditions faced by households or by firms was most responsible for the downturn. Some studies have suggested that the household-side credit channel is quantitatively the most important one. Many others contend that the firm-side channel played a crucial role. We propose a model in which both channels are present and explicitly formalized. Our analysis indicates that the household-side credit channel is quantitatively more relevant than the firm-side credit channel. We then evaluate the relative benefits of a fixed-sized transfer to households and to firms that improves each group’s access to credit. We find that the effects of such a transfer on employment are substantially larger when the transfer targets households rather than firms. Hence, we provide theoretical and quantitative support to the view that the employment decline during the Great Recession would have been less severe if instead of focusing on easing firms’ access to credit, the government had expended an equal amount of resources to alleviate households’ credit constraints. Read More

Ben R Craig Tom Phelan Jan Peter Siedlarek Jared Steinberg

Many of the models used to track, forecast, and inform the response to epidemics such as COVID-19 assume that everyone has an equal chance of encountering those who are infected with a disease. But this assumption does not reflect the fact that individuals interact mostly within much narrower groups. We argue that incorporating a network perspective, which accounts for patterns of real-world interactions, into epidemiological models provides useful insights into the spread of infectious diseases. Read More

Allan Dizioli Roberto Pinheiro

We introduce two types of agent heterogeneity in a calibrated epidemiological search model. First, some agents cannot afford to stay home to minimize virus exposure. Our results show that poor agents bear most of the epidemic’s health costs. Furthermore, we show that when a larger share of agents fail to change their behavior during the epidemic, a deeper recession is possible. Second, agents develop symptoms heterogeneously. We show that for diseases with a higher share of asymptomatic cases, even when less lethal, health and economic outcomes are worse. Public policies such as testing, quarantining, and lockdowns are particularly beneficial in economies with larger shares of poor agents. However, lockdowns lose effectiveness when a larger share of the agents take voluntary precautions to minimize virus exposure independent of the lockdown. Read More

Michael D Bordo Joseph G Haubrich

Does the yield curve’s ability to predict future output and recessions differ when interest rates are low, as in the current global environment? In this paper we build on recent econometric work by Shi, Phillips, and Hurn that detects changes in the causal impact of the yield curve and relate that to the level of interest rates. We explore the issue using historical data going back to the 19th century for the United States and more recent data for the United Kingdom, Germany, and Nhật bản. This paper is similar in spirit to Ramey and Zubairy (2022), who look the government spending multiplier in times of low interest rates. Read More

Daniel Murphy Eric R Young

We evaluate alternative public debt management policies in light of constraints imposed by the effective lower bound on interest rates. Replacing the current limit on gross debt issued by the fiscal authority with a limit on consolidated debt of the government can ensure that output always reaches its potential, but it may permit excess government spending when the economy is away from the effective lower bound. The welfare-maximizing policy sets the gross debt limit to the level implied by Samuelson (1954), while the central bank finances government spending with money when the economy is the effective lower bound. Read More

Edward Knotek II Raphael Schoenle Alexander M Dietrich Gernot J Muller Kristian Ove R Myrseth Michael Weber

Masks or cloth face coverings have the potential to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 without greatly disrupting economic activity if they are widely used. To assess the state of mask wearing, we surveyed US consumers about their recent and prospective mask-wearing behavior. We find that most respondents are wearing masks in public but that some respondents are less likely to follow social-distancing guidelines while doing so, indicating a potential tradeoff between two of the recommended methods that jointly reduce coronavirus transmission. While most respondents indicated that they were extremely likely to wear a mask if required by public authorities, the reported likelihood is strongly dependent on age and perceived mask efficacy. Read More

Wesley Janson Randal J Verbrugge

Working paper 20-22 was reviewed by staff the BLS prior to its posting. After its posting, subsequent discussions with staff the BLS revealed that the BLS treatment of nonpayment is different from the treatment assumed in the working paper. As a result, the authors have removed the old version of the working paper in order to incorporate this new information. Read More

Dionissi Aliprantis Kristen Tauber

Medical data are new to the analyses and deliberations of Federal Reserve monetary policymakers, but such data are now of primary importance to policymakers who need to understand the virus’s trajectory to assess economic conditions and address the virus’s impacts on the economy. The number of deaths caused by COVID-19 is one key metric that is often referred to, but as with other COVID metrics, it is a challenge to measure accurately. We discuss the issues involved in measuring COVID-19 deaths and argue that the change in the number of directly observed COVID-19 deaths is the most reliable and timely approach when using deaths to judge the trajectory of the pandemic in the United States, which is critical given the current inconsistencies in testing and limitations of hospitalization data. Read More

Filippo Occhino

The 2022 tax reform affected investment through many channels. I use a macroeconomic model to estimate the overall effect. That estimate suggests that, because the different provisions worked in different directions, the initial impact of the tax reform on investment was small. The same model predicts that the tax reform will hold investment down in the medium term. Read More

Kristen Tauber Willem Van Zandweghe

Empirical studies find that the link between inflation and economic slack has weakened in recent decades, a development that could hamper monetary policymakers as they aim to achieve their inflation objective. We show that while the role of economic slack has diminished, economic growth has become a significant driver of inflation dynamics, indicating that the link between inflation and economic activity remains but the relevant gauge of activity has changed. The new evidence suggests that the COVID-19-related recession could induce substantial disinflationary pressure. Read More

Ross Cohen Kristiansen Roberto Pinheiro

Many observers seeking historical precedent for COVID-19 draw on the 1918 influenza pandemic. In this Commentary, we highlight the differences between the 1918 flu and COVID-19 pandemics in terms of the most significantly affected populations. We also show key differences in the US economy in the late 1910s and now. Not only did the 1918 influenza virus primarily affect significantly younger cohorts, but the US economy’s industry and geographic distributions were notably different the time compared to today’s. Consequently, caution is needed when using the 1918 influenza pandemic as a guideline for implementing and evaluating policy responses to COVID-19. Read More

Jose Asturias Sewon Hur Timothy J Kehoe Kim J Ruhl

Applying the Foster, Haltiwanger, and Krizan (FHK) (2001) decomposition to plant-level manufacturing data from Chile and Korea, we find that the entry and exit of plants account for a larger fraction of aggregate productivity growth during periods of fast GDP growth. Studies of other countries confirm this empirical relationship. To analyze this relationship, we develop a simple model of firm entry and exit based on Hopenhayn (1992) in which there are analytical expressions for the FHK decomposition. When we introduce reforms that reduce entry costs or reduce barriers to technology adoption into a calibrated model, we find that the entry and exit terms in the FHK decomposition become more important as GDP grows rapidly, just as they do in the data from Chile and Korea. Read More

Sewon Hur Michael Jenuwine

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a dual public health and economic crisis. Many economic studies in the past few months have explored the relationship between the spread of disease and economic activity, the role for government intervention in the crisis, and the effectiveness of testing and containment policies. This Commentary summarizes the methods and findings of a number of these studies. The economic research conducted to date shows that adequate testing and selective containment measures can be effective in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the absence of adequate testing capabilities, optimal interventions involve social distancing and other lockdown measures. Read More

Lydia Cox Gernot J Muller Ernesto Pasten Raphael Schoenle Michael Weber

“Big G” typically refers to aggregate government spending on a homogeneous good. In this paper, we open up this construct by analyzing the entire universe of procurement contracts of the US government and establish five facts. First, government spending is granular; that is, it is concentrated in relatively few firms and sectors. Second, relative to private expenditures its composition is biased. Third, procurement contracts are short-lived. Fourth, idiosyncratic variation dominates the fluctuation in spending. Last, government spending is concentrated in sectors with relatively sticky prices. Accounting for these facts within a stylized New Keynesian model offers new insights into the fiscal transmission mechanism: fiscal shocks hardly impact inflation, little crowding out of private expenditure exists, and the multiplier tends to be larger compared to a one-sector benchmark, aligning the model with the empirical evidence. Read More

Edward Knotek II Raphael Schoenle Alexander M Dietrich Keith Kuester Gernot J Muller Kristian Ove R Myrseth Michael Weber

We summarize the results from an ongoing survey that asks consumers questions related to the recent coronavirus outbreak, including their expectations for how the economy is likely to be affected by the outbreak and how their own behavior has changed in response to it. The survey began in early March, providing a window into how consumers’ responses have evolved in real time since the early days of the acknowledged spread of COVID-19 in the United States. In updating and charting the survey’s findings on the Cleveland Fed’s website going forward, we seek to inform policymakers and researchers about consumers’ beliefs during a time of high uncertainty and unprecedented policy responses. Read More

Jorge Miranda Pinto Daniel Murphy Kieran James Walsh Eric R Young

We document that the interest rate response to fiscal stimulus (IRRF) is lower in countries with high inequality or high household debt. To interpret this evidence we develop a model in which households take on debt to maintain a consumption threshold (saving constraint). Now debt-burdened, these households use additional income to deleverage. In economies with more debt-burdened households, increases in government spending tighten credit conditions less (relax credit conditions more), leading to smaller increases (larger declines) in the interest rate. Our theoretical framework predicts that the negative relationship between the IRRF and debt only holds when credit is not restricted. It also predicts that the consumption response to fiscal stimulus is falling in debt and inequality (only during periods of relaxed credit). We perform a series of empirical tests and find support for these predictions. In doing so, we provide context to recent evidence on the debt-dependent effects of government spending by highlighting that the relationship between debt and fiscal effects varies with credit conditions. Read More

Filippo Occhino

This paper studies the macroeconomic effects of seven key TCJA provisions, including the tax cuts for individuals and businesses, the bonus depreciation of equipment, the amortization of R&D expenses, and the limits on interest deductibility. I use a dynamic general equilibrium model with interest deductibility and accelerated depreciation. I find that, initially, the tax reform had a small positive impact on output and investment. In the medium term, however, the effect on output will diminish, and the effect on investment will turn negative. The tax reform will depress investment in R&D. Government debt will surge. Read More

Tom Phelan

Business owners in the United States are disproportionately represented among the very wealthy and are exposed to substantial idiosyncratic risk. Further, recent evidence indicates business income primarily reflects returns to the human (rather than financial) capital of the owner. Motivated by these facts, this paper characterizes the optimal taxation of income and wealth in an environment where business income depends jointly on innate ability, luck, and the accumulated past effort exerted by the owner. I show that in (constrained) efficient allocations, more productive entrepreneurs typically bear more risk and that the associated stationary distributions of income, wealth, and firm size exhibit the thick right (Pareto) tails observed in the data. Finally, when owners may save in a risk-không lấy phí bond and trade shares of their business, I show that the optimal linear taxes in this environment call for positive taxes on firm profits and risk-không lấy phí savings, and for a tax/subsidy on wealth that may assume either sign. [Note: The final sentence of the abstract was revised for clarity two days after the paper was initially posted.] Read More

Mark Bognanni

Economic data are routinely revised after they are initially released. I examine the extent to which the real-time reliability of six monthly macroeconomic indicators important to policymakers has remained stable over time by studying the time-series properties of their short-term and long-term revisions. I show that the revisions to many monthly economic indicators display systematic behaviors that policymakers could build into their real-time assessments. I also find that some indicators’ revision series have varied substantially over time, suggesting that these indicators may now be less useful in real time than they once were. Lastly, I find that substantial revisions tend to occur indefinitely after the initial data release, a result which suggests a certain degree of caution is in order when using even thrice-revised monthly data in policymaking. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Sewon Hur

Although increased international trade is widely viewed as beneficial to the economies of the participating countries, the benefits are not distributed evenly across individuals within those countries, and indeed some individuals may bear a cost. We discuss two channels through which trade can affect individuals differently depending on their skill and income levels and assess the combined impact of those channels. We find that the effects of trade on the labor market and the effects of trade on prices go in opposite directions and are of similar magnitude. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Jim Dolmas Eric R Young

We study the political determination of flat tax systems using a workhorse macroeconomic model of inequality. There is significant variation in preferred tax policy across the wealth and income distribution. The majority voting outcome features (i) zero labor income taxation, (ii) simultaneous use of capital income and consumption taxation, and (iii) essentially zero transfers. This policy is supported by a coalition of low- and middle-wealth households. Zero labor income taxation is supported by households with below average wealth, while the middle-wealth households prefer to keep the transfer (and thus other tax rates) low. We also show that the outcome is sensitive to assumptions about the voting power of household groups, the degree of wealth and income mobility, and the forward-looking nature of votes. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Sewon Hur

How are the gains and losses from trade distributed across individuals within a country? First, we document that tradable goods and services constitute a larger fraction of expenditures for low-wealth and low-income households. Second, we build a trade model with nonhomothetic preferences—to generate the documented relationship between tradable expenditure shares, income, and wealth—and uninsurable earnings risk—to generate heterogeneity in income and wealth. Third, we use the calibrated model to quantify the differential welfare gains and losses from trade along the income and wealth distribution. In a numerical exercise, we permanently reduce trade costs so as to generate a rise in import share of GDP commensurate with that seen in the data from 2001 to 2014. We find that households in the lowest wealth decile experience welfare gains over the transition, measured by permanent consumption equivalents, that are 57 percent larger than those in the highest wealth decile. Read More

Tom Phelan

How should a utilitarian government balance redistributive concerns with the need to provide incentives for business creation and investment? Should they tax business profits, the (risk-không lấy phí) savings of owners, or some combination of both? To address this question, this paper presents a model in which the desirability of differential asset taxation emerges endogenously from the presence of agency frictions. I consider an environment in which entrepreneurs hire workers and rent capital to produce output subject to privately observed shocks and have the ability to both divert capital to private consumption and abscond with a fraction of assets. To provide incentives to invest, the wealth of an agent must depend on the performance of his/her firm, leading to ex-post inequality in all efficient allocations. I show that the efficient stationary distribution of wealth exhibits a thick right (Pareto) tail, with the degree of inequality monotonically increasing in the number of workers per entrepreneur. The efficient allocation is then implemented in a general equilibrium model using history-independent linear taxes on risk-không lấy phí savings and (reported) business profits. The tax on entrepreneurs’ savings may be positive or negative, while the tax on business profits depends solely upon the degree of private information and is independent of all technological and preference parameters. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Sewon Hur

How are the gains and losses from trade distributed across individuals within a country? First, we document that tradable goods and services constitute a larger fraction of expenditures for low-wealth and low-income households. Second, we build a trade model with nonhomothetic preferences—to generate the documented relationship between tradable expenditure shares, income, and wealth—and uninsurable earnings risk—to generate heterogeneity in income and wealth. Third, we use the calibrated model to quantify the differential welfare gains and losses from trade along the income and wealth distribution. In a numerical exercise, we permanently reduce trade costs so as to generate a rise in import share of GDP commensurate with that seen in the data from 2001 to 2014. We find that households in the lowest wealth decile experience welfare gains over the transition, measured by permanent consumption equivalents, that are 67 percent larger than those in the highest wealth decile. Read More

Filippo Occhino

According to the historical relationship known as the Phillips curve, strengthening of the economy is commonly associated with increasing inflation. With inflation having only modestly picked up in the past few years as the economy has become more robust, many believe the Phillips curve relationship has weakened, with the curve becoming flatter. I show that the flattening can be due to very different types of structural changes and that knowing the type of change that has occurred is crucial for choosing the appropriate monetary policy. Read More

Joel A Elvery

This Commentary describes how the mix of occupations in which people have been employed in the United States has evolved over time. After 100 years of dramatic change, the mix of occupations has been more stable since 1970. This trend adds occupational structure to the growing list of ways our nation’s economy has become less dynamic in recent decades. Read More

Victoria Consolvo Kurt G Lunsford

Measuring economic growth is complicated by seasonality, the regular fluctuation in economic activity that depends on the season of the year. The BEA uses statistical techniques to remove seasonality from its estimates of GDP, but some research has indicated that seasonality remains. As a result, the BEA began a three-phase plan in 2015 to improve its seasonal-adjustment techniques, and in July 2022, it completed phase 3. Our analysis indicates that even after these latest improvements by the BEA, residual seasonality in GDP growth remains. On average, this residual seasonality makes GDP growth appear to be slower in the first quarter of the year and more rapid in the second quarter of the year. Rapid second-quarter growth is particularly noticeable in recent years. As a result, business economists and policymakers may want to take seasonality into account when using GDP to assess the health of the economy. Appendix Read More

Daniel R Carroll Sewon Hur

How are the gains and losses from trade distributed across individuals within a country? First, we document that tradable goods constitute a larger fraction of expenditures for poor households. Second, we build a trade model with nonhomothetic preferences—to generate the documented relationship between tradable expenditure shares, income, and wealth—and uninsurable earnings risk—to generate heterogeneity in income and wealth. Third, we use the calibrated model to quantify the differential welfare gains and losses from trade along the income and wealth distribution. In a numerical exercise, we permanently reduce trade costs so as to generate a rise in import share of GDP commensurate with that seen in the data from 2001 to 2014. We find that households in the lowest wealth decile experience welfare gains over the transition, measured by permanent consumption equivalents, that are 67 percent larger than those in the highest wealth decile. Read More

Jose Asturias Sewon Hur Timothy J Kehoe Kim J Ruhl

Murat Tasci Nicholas Zevanove

We are now in one of the longest expansions on record. The recession that preceded that expansion was one of the worst in history. Are those two facts related? Some economists suggest they are, while others suggest it’s the other way around: Longer expansions lead to more severe recessions. We assess the evidence for these two hypotheses. We find clear evidence for the former and little for the latter. Deeper recessions are often followed by stronger recoveries, while longer and stronger expansions are not followed by deeper recessions. Read More

Andrea Carriero Todd E Clark Massimiliano Marcellino

We show that macroeconomic uncertainty can be considered as exogenous when assessing its effects on the U.S. economy. Instead, financial uncertainty can least in part arise as an endogenous response to some macroeconomic developments, and overlooking this channel leads to distortions in the estimated effects of financial uncertainty shocks on the economy. We obtain these empirical findings with an econometric model that simultaneously allows for contemporaneous effects of both uncertainty shocks on economic variables and of economic shocks on uncertainty. While the traditional econometric approaches do not allow us to simultaneously identify both of these transmission channels, we achieve identification by exploiting the heteroskedasticity of macroeconomic data. Methodologically, we develop a structural VAR with time-varying volatility in which one of the variables (the uncertainty measure) impacts both the mean and the variance of the other variables. We provide conditional posterior distributions for this model, which is a substantial extension of the popular leverage model of Jacquier, Polson, and Rossi (2004), and provide an MCMC algorithm for estimation. Read More

Andrea Carriero Todd E Clark Massimiliano Marcellino

This paper uses a large vector autoregression (VAR) to measure international macroeconomic uncertainty and its effects on major economies, using two datasets, one with GDP growth rates for 19 industrialized countries and the other with a larger set of macroeconomic indicators for the U.S., euro area, and U.K. Using basic factor model diagnostics, we first provide evidence of significant commonality in international macroeconomic volatility, with one common factor accounting for strong comovement across economies and variables. We then turn to measuring uncertainty and its effects with a large VAR in which the error volatilities evolve over time according to a factor structure. The volatility of each variable in the system reflects time-varying common (global) components and idiosyncratic components. In this model, global uncertainty is allowed to contemporaneously affect the macroeconomies of the included nations—both the levels and volatilities of the included variables. In this setup, uncertainty and its effects are estimated in a single step within the same model. Our estimates yield new measures of international macroeconomic uncertainty, and indicate that uncertainty shocks (surprise increases) lower GDP and many of its components, adversely affect labor market conditions, lower stock prices, and in some economies lead to an easing of monetary policy. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

An increase in the 10-year Treasury bond rate over the past two months has pushed the yield curve slope up to 127 basis points, but expectations of output growth were little changed. Predicted real GDP growth over the next year rose from 1.4 percent to 1.5 percent since last month, and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession in 12 months now stands 11.1 percent. Read More

Mark E Schweitzer Tasia Hane

Mark Schweitzer, senior vice president in the Research Department, discusses what’s changed—and what hasn’t—for manufacturing in the industrial heartland and in the Cleveland Fed’s District. Read More

Mark E Schweitzer Guhan Venkatu Gary Wagner

Three retrospective reports evaluate the Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh metropolitan statistical areas’ economic performance and the importance of manufacturing in the region from 1969 to the present. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

In January, the yield curve moved higher, and the slope rose to 114 basis points. Predicted real GDP growth over the next year rose to 1.4 percent and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession in 12 months fell to 12.9 percent. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

In December, the yield curve made a small parallel shift upward and the slope remained 105 basis points. Predicted real GDP growth over the next year fell to 1.3 percent and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession in 12 months fell slightly to 14.2 percent. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

In November, the yield curve moved flatter. The slope dropped to 105 basis points, predicted real GDP growth over the next year stayed level 1.4 percent, and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession in 12 months rose slightly to 14.3 percent. Read More

Kurt G Lunsford

Despite the unemployment rate's return to low levels, inflation-adjusted or "real" interest rates have remained negative. One popular explanation for persistently negative real interest rates is that long-run productivity growth has slowed. I study the long-run relationship between real interest rates and productivity growth from 1914 to 2022 and find a negative correlation between these two variables. Hence, low productivity growth has been historically associated with high real interest rates. Since World War II, the correlation between these variables has been near zero. This suggests that slow long-run productivity growth is not driving real interest rates to be persistently negative. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

In October the yield curve made a parallel shift up, with both short and long rates increasing. The slope rose to 123 basis points, predicted real GDP growth over the next year rose very slightly to 1.4 percent, and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession in 12 months fell slightly to 11.8 percent. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

In September, the yield curve shifted upward, becoming steeper in the process. The slope rose to 122 basis points, predicted real GDP growth over the next year stayed level 1.3 percent, and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession in 12 months fell slightly to 12.0 percent. Read More

Michelle Park Lazette

Why did we—the Federal Reserve—travel here? To better understand the region’s opportunities and challenges and to identify practices that effect positive change here and could work elsewhere. Here is the eastern Kentucky we met. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Jim Dolmas Eric R Young

We study the determination of flat tax systems using a workhorse macroeconomic model of inequality. Our first result is that, despite the multidimensional policy space, equilibrium policies are typically unique (up to a fine grid numerical approximation). The majority voting outcome features (i) zero labor income taxation, (ii) simultaneous use of capital income and consumption taxation, and (iii) generally low transfers. We discuss the role of three factors—the initial heterogeneity in sources of income, the mobility of income and wealth, and the forward-looking aspect of voting—in determining the equilibrium mix of taxes. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Eric R Young

In a model with a worker-capitalist dichotomy, we show that the relationship between inequality (measured as a ratio of incomes for the two types) and growth is complicated; zero growth generally lowers inequality, except under extreme parameterizations. In particular, the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor in production needs to be considerably greater than 1 in order for income inequality be higher with zero growth. If this condition is not met, factor prices adjust strongly causing the fall in the return to capital (the rise in wages) to reduce income inequality. Our results extend to models with endogenous growth. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

In August, the yield curve shifted down, with long and short rates falling. The slope rose to 118 basis points, predicted real GDP growth over the next year stayed level 1.3 percent, and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession in 12 months fell slightly to 12.5 percent. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

In July the yield curve made a parallel shift up, with both short and long rates increasing. The slope fell to 116 basis points, predicted real GDP growth over the next year fell to 1.3 percent, and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession in 12 months rose slightly to 12.9 percent. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

In June the yield curve continued to flatten, with short rates moving up and long rates moving down. The slope fell to 117 basis points, predicted real GDP growth over the next year remained 1.4 percent, and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession next June rose to 12.8 percent. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

In May the yield curve shifted higher but flattened somewhat, with short rates shooting up and faster than long rates. The slope fell to 136 basis points, predicted real GDP growth over the next year remained 1.5 percent, and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession next May rose to 10.4 percent. Read More

Amanda Michaud Jacek Rothert

Government expenditures are procyclical in emerging markets and counter-cyclical in developed economies. We show this pattern is driven by differences in social transfers. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

In April, the yield curve flattened. The slope fell to 142 basis points, predicted real GDP growth over the next year fell to 1.5 percent, and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession next April rose to 9.8 percent. Read More

Yuliya Demyanyk Elena Loutskina Daniel Murphy

This study empirically investigates whether fiscal stimulus is effective during periods of high consumer indebtedness. Using detailed data on Department of Defense spending for the 2006-2009 period, we document that the open-economy relative fiscal multiplier is higher in geographies with higher consumer indebtedness. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

In March, the yield curve moved up and got noticeably flatter. The slope fell to 165 basis points, predicted real GDP growth over the next year fell to 1.7 percent, and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession next March rose to 7.43 percent. Read More

Kurt G Lunsford

Measuring economic growth is complicated by seasonality, the regular fluctuation in economic activity that depends on the season of the year. The Bureau of Economic Analysis uses statistical techniques to remove seasonality from its estimates of GDP, and, in 2015, it took steps to improve the seasonal adjustment of data back to 2012. I show that residual seasonality in GDP growth remains even after these adjustments, has been a longer-term phenomenon, and is particularly noticeable in the 1990s. The size of this residual seasonality is economically meaningful and has the ability to change the interpretation of recent economic activity. Read More

Roberto Pinheiro Meifeng Yang

We show that the sluggishness of nominal wage growth since the Great Recession is due to weak growth in labor productivity and lower-than-expected inflation. Since 2014, the trend has reversed. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

In February, the yield curve moved down and became slightly flatter. The slope fell to 187 basis points, predicted real GDP growth over the next year stayed level 1.8 percent, and the expected chance of the economy being in a recession next February rose to 5.63 percent. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

The yield curve took a sharp turn upward, with both short and long rates moving up. The slope rose to 185 basis points. Our estimates suggest real GDP will grow about a 1.5 percent rate over the next year, and the probability of recession next January is 5.46 percent. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

The yield curve continued its shift upward and steepend further. The slope increased to 202 basis points. Our estimates suggest real GDP will grow about a 1.6 percent rate over the next year, and the probability of recession next December fell 4.07 percent. Read More

Mark Bognanni John Zito

We study labor productivity between 1968 and 2022 and compare recent productivity growth to its past behavior. We find that though recent productivity data are unambiguously weak, they are not greatly out of line with the variation of productivity over the historical record. We find that when labor productivity has been weak in the past, it did not persist those levels. In addition, we find a systematic tendency to understate growth in real time, suggesting that the average rate of the past six years will likely be revised up in future. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

The yield curve took a sharp turn upward, with both short and long rates moving up. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

The end of summer saw the yield curve taking a large twist in the steepening direction, with short rates moving down and long rates moving up. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

The end of summer saw the yield curve taking a large twist in the steepening direction, with short rates moving down and long rates moving up. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

July continues the summer trend of a flatter yield curve, with short rates inching up while long rates once again took a good tumble. Read More

O Emre Ergungor

The reliability of the term spread as a predictor of future economic activity may have been affected by short-term interest rates being zero. I enhance a simple model with two variables that should have predictive power for recessions. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

The heat of June (and perhaps Brexit) has brought a flatter yield curve, with the tiny drop in short rates swamped by the plunge in longer rates. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Meifeng Yang

July continues the summer trend of a flatter yield curve, with short rates inching up while long rates once again took a good tumble. Read More

Yuliya Demyanyk Elena Loutskina Daniel Murphy

Joseph G Haubrich Sara E Millington

While short rates edged up, the big story in the flattening of the yield curve over the past month was the long end. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Sara E Millington

While short rates edged up, the big story in the flattening of the yield curve over the past month was the long end. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Sara E Millington

While short rates edged up, the big story in the flattening of the yield curve over the past month was the long end. Read More

Pedro S Amaral James MacGee

We quantify the role of contractionary monetary shocks and wage rigidities in the U.S. Great Contraction. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Sara E Millington

While short rates edged up, the big story in the flattening of the yield curve over the past month was the long end. Read More

Kurt G Lunsford

After demonstrating some points about the behavior of residential investment and its contribution of to GDP after monetary policy shocks, this paper develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model where houses are built in discrete units and traded through searching and matching. Read More

Pedro S Amaral James MacGee

We develop a three-sector small open economy model, where wages in the nontraded and import competing sectors adjust slowly due to Taylor contracts, to study the impact of relative prices on Canadian GNP between 1928 and 1933. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Sara E Millington

Over the past month, the yield curve has flattened noticeably. Read More

Mark Bognanni Christian Garciga

Does using an alternative measure of aggregate output known as Gross Domestic Income (GDI) change our understanding of key features of the business cycle? Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Caitlin E Treanor

The curve pivoted higher around the long end, getting slightly flatter in the process. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Caitlin E Treanor

The yield curve moved up both the short and long end, getting slightly steeper in the process. Read More

Murat Tasci Caitlin E Treanor

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, many researchers, analysts, and policymakers have taken a keener interest in the unemployment rate not only as a gauge of current economic conditions, but also as a variable of interest for forecasting. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Caitlin E Treanor

The yield curve got flatter between September and October. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Eric R Young

Using too basic a model to study the relationships between wealth and income inequality and long-run economic growth may lead to questionable conclusions. So we use a more complex model. Read More

Stephan D Whitaker Daniel Kolliner

Over the last 35 years, fertility rates have declined during recessions and increased in the later years of expansions. However, a significant rise in fertility has not yet happened in the current expansion. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Jessica Ice

It is not easy to remove residual seasonality from a measure that combines GDP and GDI. Read More

Rawley Z Heimer Timothy Stehulak Daniel Kolliner

We examine the usefulness of Google search volumes as an indicator of consumer confidence. Read More

Mark Bognanni Sara E Millington

Since the Great Recession, total government spending has behaved abnormally both in its excessive volatility and in its slow growth. Read More

Randal J Verbrugge Alan Dorfman William Johnson Fred Marsh III Robert Poole Owen Shoemaker

We study which variables correlate with rent growth in 18,000 rental units between 2001 and 2004 and 2004 and 2007. We document significant rent stickiness. Initial relative rent level is the best predictor. Read More

Yuliya Demyanyk Maria Jose Luengo Prado Dmytro Hryshko Bent Sorensen

We document that the explanatory power of different factors on consumption varies by subperiods, implying that a successful modeling of this decade needs to allow for multiple causal determinants of consumption. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Eric R Young

A study of the effects on inequality of a "Piketty transition" to zero growth. Read More

Filippo Occhino Timothy Stehulak

Slow productivity growth and labor's declining share of income are among the factors depressing real wage growth. Read More

Christopher Vecchio Stephan D Whitaker

Natural gas and oil production has been increasing in the United States since 2009, while coal production has been falling. Contributing to these national trends are Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Read More

Ericka Thoms

The 114th Congress began work on 1.3.2015 implementing Dodd–Frank, reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and studying what banks are doing to keep financial data safe are all still on the docket. Read More

Michelle Park Lazette

As a new year begins, the Cleveland Fed and regional businesspeople reveal how last year compared to 2013, and offer expectations for the year before us. Hint: People expect to stay busy. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Jim Dolmas Eric R Young

We study the tax systems that arise in a once-and-for-all majority voting equilibrium embedded within a macroeconomic model of inequality. Read More

LaVaughn M Henry

After enduring the worst recession since the Great Depression, Americans have been finding jobs an increasing rate. Meanwhile, wage and salary growth has fallen in every sector except goods-producing. Read More

Filippo Occhino

This paper studies how a worsening of the debt overhang distortion on bank lending can explain banking solvency crises that are accompanied by a plunge of bank asset values and by a severe contraction of lending and economic activity. Read More

Charles T Carlstrom Timothy S Fuerst Matthias Paustian

This paper derives the optimal lending contract in the financial accelerator model of Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (1999). Read More

Filippo Occhino

The effects of the Great Recession have lasted for an exceptionally long period of time. Current economic conditions, however, suggest that the economy continues to recover. Read More

Murat Tasci Jessica Ice

Early on in the current recovery, people were worried about a potential shift in the Beveridge curve-an empirical relationship between job openings and unemployment. With 16 more quarters of data, we see there is no shift. Read More

Stephan D Whitaker Christopher Vecchio Anne Chen

The shares of a county's employment that are in each major industry classification are correlated with the county's poverty rate. We examine recent changes in these correlations. Read More

Ian Hathaway Mark E Schweitzer Scott Shane

New business establishments can be created by entrepreneurs opening new firms or by existing businesses opening new locations. We show that over the past 3 decades, new establishments have increasingly been provided by existing. Read More

Dionissi Aliprantis Anne Chen Christopher Vecchio

We compared the amount of time that unemployed workers spent searching for a job before and after the Great Recession to see if we could find evidence of rising levels of discouraged workers. Read More

Pedro S Amaral Jessica Ice Brad Kaplita

During the Great Recession, state unemployment insurance systems faced unequal burdens depending on how well their accounts within the federal Unemployment Trust Fund (UTF) were funded and how severely they were hit by the recession. Read More

Kyle Fee Ashley Orr

The Youngstown metro area has experienced a vast population decline since the 1970s, but there are signs of economic growth. Read More

Edward Knotek II Saeed Zaman

Using a statistical model, we find that three factors explain most of the decline in residential investment the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014. Read More

Murat Tasci Jessica Ice

Jobs that involve predominantly routine tasks are being replaced by technology, while jobs that involve abstract tasks have gained ground. Jobs dominated by manual tasks have held their ground. Read More

Daniel R Carroll

While it seems a simple problem to estimate the effect of government spending on output-the size of the government multiplier-it is anything but. Read More

Filippo Occhino Margaret Jacobson

Investment in structures is still 29 percent below its pre-recession peak. Read More

Filippo Occhino Jessica Ice

Forecasting the long-run growth of labor productivity helps to determine the long-run growth rates of wages, per-capita income, and aggregate output. Various forecasts suggest the growth rate lies between 1.63 percent and 2.05 percent. Read More

Stephan D Whitaker Christopher Vecchio

Consolidation of air carriers has caused a steady retreat of hubs from mid-sized metropolitan areas like those of the Fourth District. Read More

Pedro S Amaral Margaret Jacobson

Recently, investment in inventories, as measured by a statistic called the change in private inventories (CIPI), has been strong. It accounted for almost 30 percent of GDP growth over the second half of 2013. Read More

Daniel R Carroll

Back in November 2012, private fixed investment appeared to have stalled. Including current data changes the picture. Overall, investment now appears to have been recovering faster than GDP since 2010:Q4. Read More

Guhan Venkatu

Though the United States has been experiencing one of the weakest labor markets in decades, employment conditions in the Pittsburgh area have been much more favorable in recent years. Read More

Pedro S Amaral Sara E Millington

Real GDP grew an annualized rate of 3.6 percent in the third quarter of 2013 according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s second estimate—considerably above the advance estimate of 2.8 percent that was released in November. Read More

Ann Marie Wiersch

Testimony focusing on the decline in lending to small businesses and the factors that are driving that decline. Read More

Filippo Occhino

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Domestic Income (GDI) both measure the same economic variable. These two measures may, sometimes, diverge because of measurement errors. Read More

Sara E Millington Randal J Verbrugge

Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases estimates of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Producer Price Index (PPI). Read More

Kyle Fee Daniel A Hartley

Four years into the economic recovery, housing markets have finally started to improve. Read More

Kyle Fee Kathryn Holston

A profile of the Columbus Metropolitan Statistical Area and how this Fourth District metro area’s economy measures with that of Ohio and the nation. Read More

James Nason Ellis W Tallman

This paper explores the hypothesis that the sources of economic and financial crises differ from those of noncrisis business cycle fluctuations. Read More

Kyle Fee Kathryn Holston

A report and profile of Pittsburgh’s Metropolitan Statistical Area and how this Fourth District metro area measures up with the nation’s economy. Read More

Pedro S Amaral Sara E Millington

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that the personal saving rate for the first quarter of 2013 was 2.3 percent—a five-year low, and a substantial drop from the fourth quarter of 2012, when it stood 5.3 percent. Read More

Margaret Jacobson Filippo Occhino

Business fixed investment remains below its pre-recession peak, mainly due to the delayed recovery of one of its components, investment in nonresidential structures (factories, office buildings, etc.). Read More

Margaret Jacobson

Natural gas production in the United States has surged, thanks to innovations and expansions of shale drilling activity. Though the boom has the potential to affect the broader economy, its impact on the trade deficit has thus far been small. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has moved down, and though both short and long rates fell, the change in long rates dominated, and the curve became significantly flatter. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Samuel B Chapman

After steadily increasing for a decade, government spending and employment began to reverse course halfway into 2010. We are now almost four years into the recovery, and neither has returned to levels typical of past recoveries. Read More

Timothy Dunne Kyle Fee

On the whole, GDP growth in U.S. metropolitan areas was strong in the first two years of the recovery. But growth rates varied widely in different places. Read More

Christopher Vecchio Stephan D Whitaker

During the previous decade, federal expenditures and transfers flowing into the metro areas of the Fourth District rose by 48 percent. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has gotten somewhat steeper, as long rates rose and short rates fell (both slightly). Read More

Pedro S Amaral Sara E Millington

Real GDP grew an annualized rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s revised estimate. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has moved up, getting somewhat steeper in the process, as long rates moved more than short rates. Read More

Samuel B Chapman Yuliya Demyanyk

Americans’ debt burden—the ratio of debt payments to disposable income—grew steadily before the last recession and fell sharply once the recession began. Read More

Margaret Jacobson Filippo Occhino

The current level of real GDP is 11.4 percent below the forecast that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) made back in 2007, before the beginning of the crisis. Read More

Murat Tasci Christopher Vecchio

It has been five years since the beginning of the Great Recession, and the labor market recovery, while far from great, has been steady. Nevertheless, we are still more than 3 million jobs short of the pre-recession level. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has gotten noticeably steeper, with long rates moving up and short rates barely budging. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has gotten slightly steeper, with long rates edging up and short rates edging down. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has flattened slightly, with long rates falling more than short short rates. Read More

Samuel B Chapman Yuliya Demyanyk

Since the end of the recent recession, the economy has been struggling to regain a solid footing and return to precrisis levels of employment and GDP. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Samuel B Chapman

Investment is a key factor influencing economic growth. Read More

Christopher Vecchio Stephan D Whitaker

After three years of temporary upturns and recurrent declines, housing prices appear to have finally entered a sustainable recovery. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has gotten imperceptibly flatter, as both long and short short rates crept down, nearly in parallel. Read More

Margaret Jacobson Filippo Occhino

The economy continues to expand a slow pace. Real GDP rose an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the second quarter of 2012, down from 2 percent in the first quarter. Read More

James Nason Ellis W Tallman

This paper explores the hypothesis that the sources of economic and financial crises differ from those of noncrisis business cycle fluctuations. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has steepened somewhat, even as both long and short rates moved up. Read More

Pedro S Amaral Margaret Jacobson

The ratio of exports to GDP has been growing a far faster rate in the current recovery than in an average one. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has steepened, as short rates stayed even and long rates took a jump up. Read More

Timothy Dunne

During the Great Recession, the rate which Americans formed households fell sharply. Read More

Margaret Jacobson Filippo Occhino

Since the end of the recession, the economy has expanded a slow pace. Read More

Andrew Scarponi Stephan D Whitaker

One distinct characteristic of the recent slow recovery has been financial strain of state and, especially, local governments. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has gotten flatter, as short rates stayed nearly even and long rates dropped. Read More

Daniel R Carroll

Purchases of durable goods make up a small part of overall consumption, but forecasters pay attention to it because it is thought to give a hint about where GDP is headed in the next quarter. Read More

Timothy Dunne Kyle Fee

The recovery from the U.S. recession has not been uniform across the 50 states. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has flattened, as short rates stayed even and long rates fell. Read More

Michael D Bordo Joseph G Haubrich

Do steep recoveries follow deep recessions? Does it matter if a credit crunch or banking panic accompanies the recession? Moreover, does it matter if the recession is associated with a housing bust? Read More

Pedro S Amaral Margaret Jacobson

The second estimate for real GDP growth in the first quarter of 2011 came in 1.9 percent, a decrease from the previously estimated 2.2 percent. Read More

Jonathan James

Many aspects of the labor market have yet to return to their pre-recession levels in the economic recovery. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has flattened, as short rates stayed even and long rates fell. Read More

John Carlson John Lindner

Since the early 1990s, employment growth has been persistently slow coming out of recessions. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has flattened, as short rates stayed even and long rates fell. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has gotten noticeably steeper, as short rates edged down and long rates jumped up. The three-month Treasury bill dropped to 0.09 percent (for the week ending March 16). Read More

Daniel R Carroll

The run-up in government expenditures during the recent financial crisis has led some to believe that growth in the government sector is far outpacing the economy. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Over the past month, the yield curve has flattened somewhat, as short rates moved up while longer rates barely budged. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

Starting the new year, the yield curve rose, with both long and short rates rising slightly. Read More

Daniel R Carroll

Consumption makes up roughly 70 percent of GDP as measured by the National Income and Product Accounts. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

In December the yield curve moved flatter. Long rates fell, and short rates stayed the same, because they can go no lower. Read More

Mark E Schweitzer Scott Shane

Is uncertainty causing small business owners to behave in ways that are hindering the recovery? That question is the center of an intense public debate. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patricia Amy Waiwood

In November the yield curve got flatter, partially reversing October’s steepening, but still staying above September’s slope. Read More

Margaret Jacobson Filippo Occhino

After feeble GDP growth in the first half of the year, third-quarter data came out a little stronger, suggesting that the recovery is continuing and the risk of recession is reduced. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Margaret Jacobson

If September saw a flattening in the yield curve in the wake of Operation Twist (formally, the Maturity Extension Program and Reinvestment Policy of the Federal Reserve), October saw a reversal. Read More

Daniel R Carroll John Lindner

The United States is not the first advanced modern economy to face a serious federal budget challenge. A number of countries have seen their debt rise to unacceptable levels in recent decades, and they have taken steps to rein it in. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Brent Meyer

The Great Recession and the subsequent weak recovery have prompted the U.S. government to take a larger role in the economy. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Margaret Jacobson

Since last month and in the wake of the Maturity Extension Program and Reinvestment Policy of the Federal Reserve, more colloquially known as Operation Twist, or Let’s Twist Again, the yield curve has flattened as long rates fell. Read More

Dionissi Aliprantis Mary Zenker

There is reason to believe that educational attainment is one of the key determinants of outcomes in the labor market. Read More

Margaret Jacobson Filippo Occhino

Economic activity has slowed markedly in recent months. After growing 3.14 percent in 2010, real GDP grew a rate of only 0.7 percent during the first half of 2011. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Margaret Jacobson

Over the past month, the yield curve flattened as long rates fell. The three-month Treasury bill rate dropped to 0.01 percent (for the week ending August 26), down from July’s 0.03 percent and even below June’s 0.02 percent. Read More

Pedro S Amaral

During the last recession, credit flows suffered their worst slowdown since World War II. Read More

Filippo Occhino Margaret Jacobson

Three and a half years after the beginning of the recession, real GDP is still below its pre-recession peak. Read More

Robert J Sadowski Margaret Jacobson

When asked about domestic oil and natural gas production and where most of it occurs, people will likely reply: the region surrounding the Gulf of Mexico. Read More

Owen F Humpage Margaret Jacobson

The United States has run a current-account deficit almost every year since 1982, primarily because U.S. residents have imported more goods and services than they have exported. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Margaret Jacobson

Over the past month, the yield curve barely moved, experiencing a small parallel upward shift as both short and long rates inched along. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Timothy Bianco

Over the past month, the yield curve dropped and flattened slightly as both long rates and short rates dropped. Read More

Daniel R Carroll

In year-over-year terms, state tax revenues have been rising throughout 2010, reaching a high of 6.8 percent real growth in the fourth quarter. Read More

Kenneth Beauchemin

The U.S. economy has recently been hit by a number of supply shocks, and businesses and consumers have seen oil, food, and materials prices rise as a result. Read More

Timothy Bianco Filippo Occhino

The current business cycle has been atypical along many dimensions. The recession was one of the most severe, and the recovery has been one of the slowest. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Timothy Bianco

Over the past month, the yield curve became flatter, as long rates dropped, reversing their previous increase. Short rates edged down yet again. Read More

Pedro S Amaral Margaret Jacobson

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that real GDP grew an annual equivalent rate of 1.8 percent in the first quarter of 2011, down from a pace of 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010. Read More

Stephan D Whitaker

Since the onset of the financial crisis, everyone involved in financing and developing office properties has been watching trends in commercial real estate markets. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Timothy Bianco

Over the past month, the yield curve became steeper, as long rates increased, resuming a trend that had been broken in the previous month. Read More

Guhan Venkatu

The Labor Department recently released updated employment estimates for U.S. metropolitan areas (MSAs). Read More

Scott Shane

Though the recent recession was the worst downturn since the Great Depression, some observers argue that one silver lining is an upswing in entrepreneurship. Read More

Timothy Bianco Filippo Occhino

Falling home and financial asset prices have combined to weaken the average household's balance sheet, and this has helped to slow down the current recovery. Read More

Timothy Bianco Filippo Occhino

One reason for the striking severity of the last recession is the double whammy that struck household and corporate balance sheets. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Timothy Bianco

Over the past month, the yield curve flattened, as long rates dropped sharply, reversing their pattern of the past several months. Read More

Pedro S Amaral

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s advance estimate, in the fourth quarter of 2010, GDP increased an annual equivalent rate of 3.2 percent. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Timothy Bianco

The yield curve twisted steeper over the past month, as long rates once again increased substantially, moving up nearly one quarter of a percentage point, while short rates edged down. Read More

Murat Tasci

Unemployment has remained very high since the end of last recession, leading some economists to suggest that the underlying trend of the unemployment rate must have risen, driving unemployment permanently higher. Read More

Daniel R Carroll

The past decade has been rough for households. The US economy experienced a small recession in 2001, grew rapidly through 2006, and then finished with a massive recession. Read More

Kenneth Beauchemin John Lindner

Nonresidential fixed investment in structures managed to (nearly) tread water in the third quarter, falling only 3.6 percent compared to a 13.5 percent drop over the previous four quarters. Read More

Dakshina de Silva Timothy Dunne Georgia Kosmopoulou Carlos Lamarche

We examine the impact of a program that requires prime contractors to subcontract out a portion of a highway procurement project to firms. We study how DBE subcontracting requirements affect bidding behavior in federally funded projects. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Timothy Bianco

Continuing a recent trend, the yield curve became steeper over the past month, as long rates increased nearly 0.2 percent, and short rates inched up. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Timothy Bianco

Continuing a recent trend, the yield curve moved sharply steeper over the past month, as long rates increased nearly three-tenths of one percent, and short rates held steady. Read More

Murat Tasci Mary Zenker

The effects of the recent recession have been especially bad for the labor market. Read More

Filippo Occhino Andrea Pescatori

We study the macroeconomic implications of the debt overhang distortion. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Timothy Bianco

The yield curve became sharply steeper over the past month, as long rates increased nearly 0.4 percent, and short rates held steady. Read More

Pedro S Amaral

The first estimate for GDP and its components in the third quarter of 2010 is out and it is not a very encouraging one, least as far as the recovery goes. Read More

Daniel A Hartley

At the end of September 2010, the United States Census Bureau released the 2009 data from the American Community Survey (ACS). Read More

Stephan D Whitaker

The number and value of building permits in the Fourth District show the glimmer of an upturn in local housing markets. Read More

Sanchita Mukherjee

This paper analyzes the impact of capital market openness on exchange rate pass-through and subsequently on the social loss function in an inflation-targeting small open economy under a pure commitment policy. Read More

Kenneth Beauchemin John Lindner

Second-quarter GDP growth was revised up from 1.6 percent to 1.7 percent in the third and final estimate— least until the July benchmark revisions next year. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Timothy Bianco

Long rates dropped over the past month, flattening out the yield curve, as short rates stayed level. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Timothy Bianco

Long rates took a turn higher over the past month, adding a bit of steepness to the yield curve, as short rates stayed level. Read More

Murat Tasci John Lindner

The recent recession, now called the Great Recession by many, had significant adverse effects on the labor market overall. Read More

Pedro S Amaral

Since the Second World War, real GDP in the United States has grown, on average, a yearly rate of 3.2 percent. Read More

Kenneth Beauchemin

There has been much talk about a disappointing recovery in the wake of the Great Recession-that this time it is much slower. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Timothy Bianco

As long rates continue their steep slide, the yield curve has flattened, as short rates stayed level. Read More

Pedro S Amaral

U.S. federal debt has grown to levels that have not been seen since the aftermath of the Second World War. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Timothy Bianco

Since last month, the yield curve has flattened, as long rates dropped and short rates edged up. Read More

Filippo Occhino

Many economists have suggested that the weakness of corporate balance sheets is constraining business spending and investment, and that this in turn is impeding growth and the recovery. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has dropped slightly, with both long and short rates ticking down. Read More

Daniel R Carroll

State and local governments make up a large portion of our economy, together accounting for 11.8 percent of GDP last year. Read More

Daniel A Hartley Beth Mowry

The employment numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on June 4, 2010, showed a large increase in temporary government employment due to the hiring of workers for the 2010 Census. Read More

Filippo Occhino Kyle Fee

As many commentators have noted, the recession of 2007–2009 has been one of the most severe since the Great Depression. Read More

Kyle Fee

Over the past few months, the labor market has begun to show signs of stabilization. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has flattened, with long rates falling as short rates barely ticked up. The difference between these rates, the slope of the yield curve, has achieved some notoriety as a simple forecaster of economic growth. Read More

Owen F Humpage

In the years prior to our recent economic crisis, foreign savings poured into the United States. Read More

Pedro S Amaral

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s latest estimate, real GDP increased a 3.2 percent annualized rate in the first quarter of the year. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

In the past two months, the yield curve has moved up and gotten steeper, with long rates rising a bit more than short rates. Read More

Owen F Humpage Caroline Herrell

We have never quite understood the pejorative connotation associated with “global imbalances.” Read More

Kenneth Beauchemin

The final estimate of fourth-quarter real GDP growth registered 5.6 percent, but was revised down from the second estimate of 5.9 percent. It was, nevertheless, substantially higher than the 2.2 percent pace recorded in the third quarter. Read More

Murat Tasci

Recent recessions have been followed by exceptionally slow recoveries in the labor market, and the current recession is shaping up to follow the same pattern. Read More

Filippo Occhino Andrea Pescatori

We study the macroeconomic implications of the debt overhang distortion. Read More

Daniel R Carroll Beth Mowry

Saving is the engine that drives long-run economic growth by providing funds for investment in capital and projects, which then produce output in the future. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has moved up and gotten steeper, with long rates rising a bit more than short rates. Read More

John Lindner

GDP had its strongest quarter in more than six years, coming in above the majority of analysts’ estimates an annualized rate of 5.7 percent for the fourth quarter of 2009. Read More

John Carlson John Lindner

During the recent financial turmoil, the Federal Reserve created several emergency credit facilities to address the extreme demands for liquidity. Read More

Owen F Humpage Caroline Herrell

A quick look the latest GDP data might suggest that imports are slowing the domestic recovery. A quick look might get it wrong. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

A new year has started, and by some reckoning, a new decade, so it may be a natural time to take a look back. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

new year has started, and by some reckoning, a new decade, so it may be a natural time to take a look back. Read More

John Lindner

Third-quarter GDP growth was revised down again in the third estimate. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has gotten a bit steeper, with long rates moving up as short rates held steady. Read More

Kyle Fee

In recent remarks, Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke has stated that “from a technical perspective, the recession is very likely over this point.” Read More

Daniel R Carroll Eric R Young

This paper compares the steady state outcomes of revenue-neutral changes to the progressivity of the tax schedule. Read More

John Lindner

Third-quarter GDP was revised down in the second estimate, as the annualized growth rate dropped from 3.5 to 2.7 percent, which was close to consensus expectations. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has shifted a bit downward and flattened slightly, with long rates dropping a bit faster than short rates. Since last month, the three-month rate has fallen to 0.04 percent (for the week ending November 20). Read More

John Lindner

GDP rose an annualized rate of 3.5 percent in the third quarter, somewhat higher than consensus expectations and pulling the four-quarter GDP growth rate up from −3.8 percent to −2.3 percent. Read More

Paul Bauer Caroline Herrell

The advance estimate of 3.5 percent for GDP growth in the third quarter of 2009 is welcome news, and it suggests that the longest recession since the Great Depression and the deepest since the 1950s is likely to have ended ... Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has shifted a bit downward and steepened slightly, with short rates dropping a bit faster than long rates. Read More

John Lindner

Instead of falling an annualized rate of −1.0 percent as reported in the second estimate, GDP now is estimated to have fallen only − 0.7 percent. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has steepened slightly, with long rates edging up as short rates edged down. Read More

Kyle Fee Murat Tasci

The unemployment rate provides information on the number of people who are unemployed as a fraction of the labor force any given point in time, but when it rises, it doesn’t tell us much about why. Read More

Kyle Fee Filippo Occhino

The 2009 federal budget deficit is now anticipated to be 11.2 percent of GDP, by far the largest value of the postwar period. Read More

John Lindner Brent Meyer

Real GDP was virtually unchanged in the latest revision of the second-quarter estimate, falling an annualized rate of −1.0 percent. While the headline number was unchanged, there were some interesting moves in the components. Read More

Caroline Herrell Owen F Humpage

Since 1986, foreigners have held more claims against U.S. residents than U.S. residents have held against the rest of the world, or—as economists like to say—the United States has had a negative net international investment position. Read More

Kent Cherny Joseph G Haubrich

Since last month, the yield curve has flattened slightly, with long rates dropping a bit more than short rates, which barely changed. Read More

Timothy Dunne Kyle Fee

During the current recession, investment in residential structures and investment in private nonresidential structures have experienced markedly different paths. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP decreased an annualized rate of 1.0 percent in the second quarter,beating expectations. Due to the comprehensive revision, year-over-year growth in real GDP fell to −3.9 percent through the second quarter, a post-World War II low. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has flattened slightly, with long rates dropping while short rates stayed essentially unchanged. Projecting forward using past values of the spread and GDP growth suggests that real GDP will grow ... Read More

Timothy Dunne Shawn Klimek Mark Roberts Daniel Yi Xu

Market structure is determined by the entry and exit decisions of individual producers. Read More

Caroline Herrell Owen F Humpage

The global nature of our current economic problems suggests that few countries will find trade an outlet for their economic troubles. Moreover, the risks to the outlook still remain more heavily weighted toward the downside than the upside. Read More

Brent Meyer

The final estimate for real GDP growth in the first quarter of 2009 came in −5.5 percent, 0.2 percentage point above the preliminary estimate and 0.6 percentage point higher than the advance estimate. Read More

Kyle Fee

The Bureau of Economic Analysis recently released its annual report documenting patterns of gross domestic product growth across states. Real GDP growth slowed in 38 states in 2008, which included the Fourth District’s dismal numbers. Read More

Owen F Humpage Michael Shenk

The financial crisis and accompanying recession have had a severe impact on government budgets, raising the specter of huge government debt burdens down the road. Large government debt burdens are not just a fiscal problem. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has become noticeably steeper, with long rates rising dramatically. The difference between short and long rates, the slope of the yield curve, has achieved some notoriety as a simple forecaster of economic growth. Read More

Beth Mowry Murat Tasci

NBER declared December 2007 as the peak of the previous expansion in the U.S. economy (and thus, the start of the current recession). Assuming that we are still in the recession, this downturn will likely be the longest since 1945. Read More

Kyle Fee Filippo Occhino

After deteriorating sharply in August 2007 and then again in the fall of 2008, financial market conditions have improved markedly during the past quarter. Given the historical relationship between financial market conditions and ... Read More

Brent Meyer

First-quarter real GDP growth was revised up from an annualized percent change of −6.1 percent in the advance estimate to −5.7 percent, according to the preliminary estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Read More

Owen F Humpage Michael Shenk

A lively debate has arisen over the contribution that foreign savings may have made to our current economic problems. Read More

Michael Shenk

The truyền thông, as well policymakers, are increasingly calling the current economic downturn the “worst since the Great Depression.” Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has shifted up and gotten steeper, with both short and long rates rising. The spread between these rates, the slope of the yield curve, has achieved some notoriety as a simple forecaster of economic growth. Read More

Michael Shenk

It’s been three years since the housing markets did a nosedive. Is the housing market correction finally over? The short answer is probably no, but there are some encouraging signs of improvement. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP decreased an annualized rate of 6.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009, slightly less negative than the fourth quarter’s −6.3 percent, but coming in worse than consensus expectations. Read More

Paul Bauer Michael Shenk

It is no secret that some households are being hit hard in the current recession. The ongoing job losses, lower housing wealth, and tight credit of this financial crisis have led to some abrupt shifts in household consumption behavior. Read More

Owen F Humpage Michael Shenk

No two recessions are exactly alike. Nevertheless, recessions often share basic characteristics that determine their severity and the pace of subsequent recoveries. Read More

Michael Shenk

Despite much of policymakers’ time being devoted to the ongoing financial crisis and the resulting recession, there seems to be a great giảm giá of resolve to tackle the pressing issue of healthcare reform. Read More

Brent Meyer

The final estimate of real GDP in the fourth quarter of 2008 came in −6.3 percent (annualized rate), 0.1 percentage points lower than the preliminary estimate and whopping 2.5 percentage points below the advance estimate. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has moved lower and flattened slightly, with long rates dropping a bit more than short rates, though the difference between them remains strongly positive. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP was revised down 2.5 percentage points to −6.2 percent (annualized rate) in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the preliminary release by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Read More

Kyle Fee Filippo Occhino

In recent months, we have seen a staggering increase in stock market volatility. One popular measure of market volatility, the Chicago Board Options Exchange’s Volatility Index (VIX), jumped to 62.6 in November 2008, higher than it’s ever been. Read More

Michael Shenk

Ford, GM, and Chrysler have struggled for some time, but last fall their situations dramatically worsened. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

In the midst of all the depressing news about the economy, the yield curve still might provide a slice of optimism. Read More

Owen F Humpage Michael Shenk

With world trade and industrial production falling precipitously, the International Monetary Fund has again pared its forecast for global economic growth. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP decreased an annualized rate of 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. While this marks the statistic’s worst quarterly performance since 1982, it is much less than the −5.5 percent that was expected. Read More

Paul Bauer Michael Shenk

Few were surprised when the NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee announced on December 1, 2008, that the U.S. economy was in recession. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP decreased an annualized rate of 0.5 percent in the third quarter of 2008 (unchanged from the preliminary estimate), according to the final estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Tp New York Times columnist Paul Krugman doesn’t think we should be relying on the yield curve for predictions of economic growth, given the current economic environment. Read More

Kyle Fee

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has designated December 2007 as the starting point of the current recession. Read More

Rui Castro Luca Clementi Gian Yoonsoo Lee

In this paper we use data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Research Database in order to assess the extent of the cross-sectoral variation in firm-level idiosyncratic risk and shed light on its determinants. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

In the midst of the horrendous economic news of the last month, the yield curve might provide a slice of optimism. Read More

Brent Meyer

Third–quarter real GDP was revised down 0.2 percentage point, to −0.5 percent, according to the preliminary estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Read More

Beth Mowry Andrea Pescatori

Industrial production rebounded in October, rising 1.26 percent after declining a downwardly revised 3.7 percent in September. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

In the midst of the horrendous economic news of the last month, the yield curve might provide a slice of optimism. Read More

Paul Bauer Michael Shenk

The third quarter’s GDP report did not make for uplifting reading, so now is a good time to take a longer run view to help us reestablish our equilibrium, if not the economy’s. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP decreased an annualized rate of 0.3 percent in the third quarter, slightly above expectations. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

In the midst of the horrendous economic news of the past month, the yield curve might provide a slice of optimism. Read More

Michael Shenk

The common definition of a recession, and the one most frequently cited in the truyền thông, is a period of two consecutive quarterly declines in real GDP. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP advanced an annualized rate of 2.8 percent in the second quarter, according to the final release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Read More

Timothy Dunne Kyle Fee

Not too surprisingly, news of general economic activity has taken a backseat to news of the problems plaguing the U.S. financial system. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has moved lower and gotten steeper, as both short and long-term interest rates fell. Read More

Andrea Pescatori Beth Mowry

Market commentators and journalists like to draw direct lines between the behavior of crude oil prices and market behavior on a given day ... Read More

Owen F Humpage Michael Shenk

Sometimes globalization giveth, but sometimes it taketh away. The dollar’s recent depreciation and exceptionally strong economic growth abroad have been a boon to U.S. economic growth, but that may now be changing. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP advanced an annualized rate of 3.3 percent in the second quarter, outpacing its growth over the past four quarters, according to the preliminary release from the BEA. Read More

Kyle Fee

The Columbus Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is located in the geographic center of Ohio. The MSA is home to 1.75 million people dispersed across eight counties (Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin, Licking, Madison, Morrow, Pickaway, and Union). Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has flattened modestly, with both short-term interest rates increasing and longer rates holding steady. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP increased an annualized rate of 1.9 percent in the second quarter of 2008, according to the advance estimate released by the BEA, 0.1 percentage point higher than its growth over the last four quarters. Read More

Owen F Humpage Michael Shenk

The United States has run a current account deficit almost continuously since 1982. Read More

Paul Bauer

After the last business cycle peak—still officially March 2001—labor productivity remained strong, but employment took longer than usual to recover. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has taken a parallel downward shift, with both short-term and long-term interest rates falling. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP increased an annualized rate of 1.0 percent in the first quarter of 2008, according to the final estimate released by the BEA. Read More

Mark Sniderman

Historians may decide that Ross Perot’s greatest contribution to the American political landscape was not his prediction of the job losses NAFTA would cause, but his memorable description of the result he feared. Read More

Timothy Dunne Xiaoyi Mu

This paper investigates the effect of uncertainty on the investment decisions of petroleum refineries in the US. Read More

Michael Shenk

Recently, the argument has been made that outside of the housing market, the economy is actually doing pretty well. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Kent Cherny

Since last month, the yield curve has taken a parallel upward shift, with both short-term and long-term interest rates rising. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real (inflation-adjusted) GDP increased an annualized rate of 0.9 percent in the first quarter, according to the preliminary estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), up 0.3 percentage point from the advance estimate. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich

Since last month, the yield curve has witnessed a parallel upward shift, with both short-term and long-term interest rates rising. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP grew an annualized rate of 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2008, the same growth rate as last quarter, according to the advance release by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Katie Corcoran

Since last month, the yield curve has gotten steeper, with long-term interest rates rising and short term interest rates falling. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP, according to the final estimate by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), was unchanged from both the preliminary and advance estimates, rising an annualized rate of 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter. Read More

Paul Bauer Katie Corcoran

Living in an age when we expect access to virtually all goods and services 24/7 and real-time reporting on even minor news events ... Read More

Murat Tasci Beth Mowry

The number of job openings or vacancies posted by employers constitutes a good measure of unmet labor demand. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Katie Corcoran

Since last month, the yield curve has gotten steeper, with long-term interest rates rising and short-term interest rates falling. Read More

Robert J Sadowski

Education and innovation contributed more to income growth the state level than other potential factors, according to research conducted the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP remained unchanged from the advance estimate, growing an annualized rate of 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Katie Corcoran

Since last month, the yield curve has gotten steeper, with long-term interest rates rising and short-term interest rates falling. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP grew an annualized rate of 0.6 percent (weaker than expected) in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the advance release by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Katie Corcoran

Since last month, both long-term and short term interest rates have decreased, with short rates dipping more, leading to a steeper yield curve. Read More

Timothy Dunne Kyle Fee

The Erie metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is located in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania on Lake Erie. Read More

Paul Bauer Katie Corcoran

As we move into a new year—and as the current expansion comes, perhaps, to an end—it is an appropriate time to examine how the U.S. economy has evolved, so far anyway, over this business cycle. Read More

Yoonsoo Lee Toshihiko Mukoyama

This paper analyzes the implications of plant-level dynamics over the business cycle. We first document basic patterns of entry and exit of U.S. manufacturing plants, in terms of employment and productivity, between 1972 and 1997. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) advanced a 4.9 percent annualized rate in the third quarter, according to the final estimate. Brent Meyer, Third-Quarter 2007 Final GDP, 12.21.07 Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Katie Corcoran

Since last month, both long-term and short term interest rates have decreased, with short rates dipping more, leading to a steeper yield curve. Read More

Although measures such as the unemployment rate and gross domestic product are significant, they can leave out important information that is captured in other economic series. Read More

Timothy Dunne Kyle Fee

Besides providing data on employment, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program also produces statistics on private business establishments. Timothy Dunne, Kyle Fee, Business Establishments, 12.11.07 Read More

Brent Meyer

Real GDP was revised up from 3.9 percent (annualized rate) to 4.9 percent, according to the preliminary estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Brent Meyer, Third-Quarter Preliminary GDP Release, 12.06.07 Read More

Owen F Humpage Michael Shenk

Our trade deficit is narrowing, with exports growing four times the pace of imports. Owen Humpage, Michael Shenk, Trade and the Dollar, December 7, 2007 Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Katie Corcoran

Since last month, both long-term and short term interest rates have decreased, with short rates dipping more, leading to a steeper yield curve. Katie Corcoran, Joseph Haubrich, The Yield Curve, November 2007, 11.20.07 Read More

Timothy Dunne Kyle Fee

The Cincinnati-Middleton Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) comprises fifteen counties in three states, including five counties in Ohio, seven counties in Kentucky, and three counties in Indiana. Read More

Owen F Humpage Michael Shenk

The continuing implosion of the U.S. housing market has caused many forecasters to trim their economic-growth estimates for this year and next. Read More

John Carlson Sarah Wakefield

Credit markets have settled a great giảm giá since late summer, when it became starkly apparent that subprime mortgages were much riskier than had been previously thought. Read More

Brent Meyer

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased a 3.9 percent annualized rate in the third quarter of 2007, following a growth rate of 3.8 percent in the second quarter. Read More

Anton Nakov Andrea Pescatori

We assess the extent to which the period of great U.S. macroeconomic stability since the mid-1980s can be accounted for by changes in oil shocks and the oil share in GDP. Read More

Yoonsoo Lee Toshihiko Mukoyama

Joseph G Haubrich Katie Corcoran

Since last month, longer-term interest rates have increased with little movement in short rates, increasing the slope of the yield curve. Read More

Ed Nosal

This paper considers implications associated with a Supreme Court ruling that can be interpreted as supporting use of eminent domain in transferring property rights of one private agent-a landowner-to another private agent-a developer. Read More

Timothy Dunne Shawn Klimek Mark Roberts Daniel Yi Xu

The relationship between the size of a market and the competitiveness of the market has been of long-standing interest to IO economists. Read More

Paul Bauer Katie Corcoran

A famous economist characterized recent years as the “age of turbulence,” and although he was not specifically referring to the last few weeks when he titled his memoirs, the label still fits. Read More

Mark Sniderman

Many people have become anxious about the future course of the U.S. economy and financial system. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Katie Corcoran

Since last month, turmoil in the financial market has shifted the yield curve downward, with short rates falling by more than long rates. Read More

Owen F Humpage Michael Shenk

The United States has financed its persistent current-account deficits by issuing financial claims—stocks, bonds, bank accounts—to rest of the world. Read More

Paul Bauer Brent Meyer

Real GDP grew a 4.0 percent annualized rate in the second quarter of 2007, well above last quarter’s 0.6 percent growth and above the 1.9 percent growth seen over the last four quarters. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Katie Corcoran

Since last month, the yield curve has twisted downward, with long rates falling more than short rates. Read More

Timothy Dunne Kyle Fee

Exports from Ohio grew a nominal rate of 8.7 percent from 2005 to 2006, according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau report. Read More

Timothy Dunne Brent Meyer

Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew a 3.4 percent annual rate in the second quarter of 2007, according to the advance estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Read More

Kyle Fee Robert J Sadowski

The Cleveland metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is located along the southern shores of Lake Erie. Read More

Ben R Craig James B Thomson William E Jackson III

The guaranteed lending programs of the Small Business Administration (SBA) are large and growing rapidly. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Brent Meyer

Since last month, the yield curve has flattened, with short rates rising and long rates falling. Read More

Mark Sniderman

The majority opinion among private economic forecasters is that the U.S. economy is in the last phase of adjusting to a series of disturbances from energy and housing markets. Read More

John Carlson Bethany Tinlin

After the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets to determine its policy rate, it issues a statement to explain its decision. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Brent Meyer

Since last month, the yield curve has steepened considerably, with short rates falling and long rates rising. Read More

Min Ouyang

This paper explores the link between short-run cycles and long-run growth by examining the cyclical properties of R&D the disaggregated industry level. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Brent Meyer

In its limited capacity as a simple forecaster of economic growth, the slope of the yield curve has been giving us a rather pessimistic view for a while now. Read More

David Altig Brent Meyer

Real GDP grew 1.3 percent (annualized) in the first quarter of 2007, according to the advance release by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Brent Meyer

As mentioned in recent months, the slope of the yield curve has achieved some notoriety as a simple forecaster of economic growth. Read More

Jinyoung Kim Gerald R Marschke

Technological progress has been the key to improved living standards, but how and where do new ideas get their start? Read More

Ed Nosal Michael Shenk

While the housing market and the subprime sector have dominated the truyền thông’s recent coverage of the economy, other indicators of current and future performance have received less attention. Read More

William R Kerr

Immigrants are exceptionally important for U.S. technology development, accounting for almost half of the country’s Ph.D. workforce in science and engineering. Read More

Christian Miller Brian Rudick

The Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), home to more than 2.3 million people, is the District’s largest metro area. Read More

David Altig Brent Meyer

Simply looking the picture demonstrates the problem with making too much out of that statistic: Most quarters bring a new low in owners’ equity share. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Brent Meyer

As mentioned in previous months, the slope of the yield curve has achieved some notoriety as a simple forecaster of economic growth. Read More

Timothy Dunne Brent Meyer

The headline numbers for construction typically focus on residential construction activity. The recent news has not been very good. Read More

Timothy Dunne Brent Meyer

The recent data on manufacturing paint a mixed picture of the health of the sector. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Brent Meyer

The slope of the yield curve has achieved some notoriety as a simple forecaster of economic growth. Read More

Paul Bauer Bethany Tinlin

Metal working has long been an important industry in the Fourth District. Read More

Ed Nosal Michael Shenk

On average, employment increased by 186,917 workers each month in 2006. Read More

David Altig Brent Meyer

This week President Bush released his proposal for government spending, taxation, and borrowing for fiscal years 2008-2022. Read More

Yoonsoo Lee Brian Rudick

Ford Motor Company’s $12.6 billion loss in 2006 leaves little doubt that the domestic automobile industry is indeed going through hard times. Read More

Owen F Humpage

The yen carry trade carries on. Read More

Timothy Dunne Brent Meyer

Industrial production of high-technology goods grew rapidly in 2006. Read More

Ed Nosal Michael Shenk

During the first eight months of 2006, annualized growth rates for industrial production were, on average, quite strong. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Brent Meyer

The slope of the yield curve has achieved some notoriety as a simple forecaster of economic growth. Read More

Timothy Dunne

According to the latest release of the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) surveys, both the manufacturing and nonmanufacturing sectors expanded as they closed out 2006. Read More

Owen F Humpage Michael Shenk

The dollar has softened a bit since early October, largely because of changing beliefs about the probable course of monetary policies here and abroad. Read More

Mark Sniderman

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland has been publishing Economic Trends since 1981, and for the past 25 years it has looked more or less the same. Read More

Ed Nosal Michael Shenk

Durable goods orders rose 1.9 percent in November, reversing October’s decline of 8.2 percent. Read More

David Altig Brent Meyer

There will be another revision in July 2007—as there is every year Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Brent Meyer

The slope of the yield curve has achieved some notoriety as a simple forecaster of economic growth. Read More

Robert J Sadowski Brian Rudick

The Akron metropolitan area—home to 702,000 residents—stretches across Summit and Portage Counties. Read More

Real GDP increased an annual rate of 2.2% in 2006:IIIQ, according to the Commerce Department’s preliminary estimate. This upward revision of 0.6% was largely unanticipated, the consensus growth estimate having been 1.8%. Read More

The economic outlook for developing countries in the Western Hemisphere is one of the brightest in decades. According to the International Monetary Fund, the region is likely to post real economic growth. Read More

The Youngstown metropolitan statistical area, home to more than half a million people, comprises three counties in Northern Ohio and Pennsylvania. Youngstown is traditionally thought of as an area heavily invested in manufacturing. Read More

Yoonsoo Lee

This paper summarizes relocation patterns in the U.S. manufacturing industry over the period 1972-1992, using plant- and firm-level data from the U.S. Census of Manufactures. Read More

Real GDP increased an annualized rate of 1.6% in 2006:IIIQ, according to the Commerce Department’s advance estimate. Read More

Eric Fisher Kathryn Marshall

Oil price shocks do not cause inflation, no matter how close the connection seems to be in our practical experience. Read More

The U.S. current account deficit grew from $852.8 billion in 2006:IQ to $873.4 billion in 2006:IIQ (annualized rates). Most of the increase reflected a wider deficit in U.S. goods trade... Read More

The Bureau of Economic Analysis has now released its second, and for this year final, revision of estimated growth in gross domestic product (GDP) for 2006:IIQ. The surprises were minimal. Read More

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released the results of its 2005 American Community Survey, an annual assessment of demographic, socioeconomic and housing characteristics for different geographic entities throughout the nation. Read More

While oil prices dominate the headlines, the prices of many other commodities have been rocketing upward. The International Monetary Fund’s recent World Economic Outlook investigates trends and suggests where commodity prices might be headed. Read More

Lawrence Christiano Joshua Davis

Using “business cycle accounting,” Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan (2006) conclude that models of financial frictions which create a wedge in the intertemporal Euler equation are not promising avenues for modeling business cycle dynamics. Read More

Sometimes it’s what you thought you knew that hurts the most. On July 28, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released one of its regular revisions in the National Income and Product Accounts. Read More

The nominal U.S. trade deficit reached an all-time high of $66.6 billion in October 2005. Read More

Like many other Fourth District metropolitan areas, Dayton is more focused on manufacturing than the U.S.: The metro area has proportionately more manufacturing workers. Read More

Real GDP increased an annualized rate of 2.5% in 2006:IIQ, according to the Commerce Department’s advance estimate. This was a sharp decrease from the previous quarter’s annualized growth rate of 5.6% and somewhat less than was generally expected. Read More

Paul Bauer Mark E Schweitzer

Even as per capita income has increased across the United States, differences among states’ incomes remain. Read More

Real GDP increased an annual rate of 5.6% in 2006:IQ, according to the Commerce Department’s final estimate, which was 0.3 percentage point (pp) above the preliminary estimate of 5.3%. Read More

In recent weeks, equities markets have taken a tumble. Although falling stock prices are nothing new, the scope of the recent downturn makes it noteworthy. Read More

Real GDP increased an annual rate of 5.3% in 2006:IQ, according to the preliminary estimate released by the Commerce Department. Read More

The price of oil has risen fairly steadily, from $20 per barrel in 2002 to $60–$70 this year. Read More

In the past 20 years, American automakers have lost market share to their foreign-based rivals. In 1985, American-brand vehicles accounted for about 74% of U.S. passenger vehicle purchases. Read More

Real GDP increased an annual rate of 4.8% in 2006:IQ, according to the Commerce Department’s advance estimate; this was 3.1 percentage points (pp) higher than the final estimate of 1.7% for growth in 2005:IVQ. Read More

Paul Bauer Mark E Schweitzer Scott Shane

Real average U.S. per capita personal income growth over the last 65 years exceeded a remarkable 400 percent. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich

Experience has taught economic forecasters to expect a recession when the yield on short-term Treasury securities rises above the yield on longerterm securities—a situation known as a yield-curve inversion. Read More

The Commerce Department’s final reading of real GDP growth for 2005:IVQ was 1.7%, up 0.1 percentage point (pp) from February’s preliminary reading. Read More

The Commerce Department’s preliminary reading of real GDP growth for 2005:IVQ was 1.6%, up 0.5 percentage point (pp) from January’s advance reading. Read More

In November 2005, the two largest exporters of oil to the U.S. were its neighbors. Canada and Mexico combined accounted for about 30% of total U.S. oil imports, up from about 27% five years earlier. Read More

Columbus is Ohio’s third-largest metropolitan area, with over 1.5 million residents. Read More

Paul Bauer Yoonsoo Lee

In gauging the health of state economies, arguably the two most important series to track are employment and output. Read More

The Commerce Department’s advance reading of real GDP growth for 2005:IVQ was 1.1%, well below expectations. Read More

In 2004, 16.9 million people—or 5.7% of the U.S. population—called the Fourth District home. Read More

Guhan Venkatu

Cleveland’s employment growth has lagged the nation’s for nearly 15 years. Read More

Paul Gomme B Ravikumar Peter Rupert

Real business cycle models have difficulty replicating the volatility of S&P 500 returns. Read More

The Commerce Department’s final reading of 4.1% real GDP growth for 2005:IIIQ was 0.8 percentage point (pp) higher than the 3.3% estimate for the second quarter. Read More

The poverty rate is the percentage of people whose family income falls below an officially determined threshold, which varies by family size and composition. Read More

Ben R Craig William E Jackson III James B Thomson

SBA guaranteed-lending programs are one of many government-sponsored market interventions aimed promoting small business. Read More

The Commerce Department’s preliminary reading of 2005:IIIQ real GDP growth was 4.3%, up from the advance reading of 3.8%. Read More

Many retailers credited colder October weather with improving the month’s sales. It is easy to think of individual goods—down-filled jackets and swimsuits, say—whose sales depend on temperature. Read More

Although measures such as the unemployment rate and gross domestic product are significant, they can leave out important information that is captured in other economic series. Read More

Cincinnati was undoubtedly hurt by the last recession, but it was affected less than the U.S. or Ohio, least where employment is concerned. Throughout the recovery, employment fell more slowly than the rest of the U.S. and for fewer weeks. Read More

The Commerce Department’s advance reading of 3.8% real GDP growth in 2005:IIIQ was 0.5 percentage point (pp) higher than growth in the previous quarter. On a year-over-year basis, real GDP grew 3.6%. Read More

Energy prices remain high. With the end of summer driving, oil prices eased a bit by October 28, falling to $61.22 for West Texas intermediate crude. Seasonal demand pressures are increasing for natural gas as we begin winter heating. Read More

As the winter heating season draws nearer, many consumers are worried about natural gas supplies and prices. By August, prices had already surpassed the most recent price spikes of December 2000 and February 2003. Read More

The Commerce Department’s final reading of real GDP for 2005:IIQ was 3.3%, unchanged from the preliminary estimate. This was 0.5 percentage point (pp) lower than the final 2005:IQ growth of 3.8%. Read More

During the first half of 2005, the U.S. registered a current account deficit of $789 billion, an amount equal to 6.4% of GDP, as we continued importing more goods and services from the rest of the world than we exported to them. Read More

Foreigners account for a substantial part of all new direct investment in the U.S., through acquisition of existing U.S. businesses. (Direct investment implies that the foreign investor has acquired a controlling interest—10% or more—in a U.S. firm.) Read More

On August 31, the Department of Commerce released its preliminary estimate of GDP and its components for 2005:IIQ. Compared to the advance estimate, real GDP growth was revised down from 3.4% to 3.3% for the quarter. Read More

Yoonsoo Lee

Procyclical productivity plays an important role in many models of aggregate fluctuations. Read More

The Commerce Department’s advance reading for GDP growth in 2005:IIQ was 3.4%, which was 0.4 percentage point (pp) lower than the final 2005:IQ rate of 3.8%. Read More

The net international investment position of the United States reached –$2.5 trillion or 21% of GDP in 2004, according to recently released data. Read More

Charles T Carlstrom Timothy S Fuerst

Recessions are associated with both rising oil prices and increases in the federal funds rate. Read More

The Commerce Department’s final reading of real GDP for 2005:IQ was 3.8%. This figure has been revised up from its advance reading of 3.1% in April and its preliminary reading of 3.5% in May. Read More

In March 2005, the U.S. imported 65% of all the oil it consumed. About 30% of those imports came from its immediate neighbors: 16% from Mexico and 14% from Canada. Slightly more than two-thirds of U.S. oil imports came from five countries. Read More

According to U.S. Commerce Department’s preliminary estimate, GDP growth in 2005:IQ was 3.5%, up from 3.1%. The revision was attributed primarily to upward revisions for personal consumption expenditures, residential investment, and exports. Read More

Between 1947 and 1974, income growth was distributed fairly evenly among households in various income groups. However, income inequality has increased over the past 30 or so years. Read More

The U.S. Commerce Department’s advance estimate of real GDP growth in 2005:IQ was 3.1%, substantially lower than the final 2004:IVQ estimate of 3.8%. Read More

Americans' average income varies considerably across states. In 2004, Connecticut had highest real per capita personal income $42,107; Mississippi had the lowest $22,863. Of Fourth District states, only Pennsylvania exceeded U.S. average. Read More

The nominal U.S. deficit for trade on goods and services increased in February to $61 billion, the largest on record. The trade deficit has been increasing for the last three years. Read More

Charles T Carlstrom Timothy S Fuerst

Every U.S. recession since 1971 has been preceded by two things: an oil price shock and an increase in the federal funds rate. Read More

The U.S. Commerce Department’s final estimate of the real GDP growth rate in 2004:IVQ is 3.8%, unchanged from the preliminary estimate. Exports and personal consumption expenditures had minor upward revisions. Read More

In 2004, U.S. current account deficit climbed to $666 billion, nearly 6% of our GDP. We financed the increase primarily by issuing financial claims to foreign governments and their central banks. Direct investment flows were essentially unchanged. Read More

Increases in oil prices and the funds rate have preceded every recession since the early 1970s. Oil price increases usually depress economic activity, but part of the decline in output results from the funds rate increase. Read More

U.S. Commerce Department’s preliminary estimate of real GDP growth in 2004:IVQ is 3.8%, higher than the advance estimate of 3.1%. This brought 2004:IVQ growth within 0.2 pp of 2004:IIIQ growth of 4.0% and only 0.1 pp below the 2004 average. Read More

Real GDP grew an annual rate of 3.1% in 2004:IVQ, according to the U.S. Commerce Department’s advance estimate. This was 0.9 percentage point (pp) lower than the 2004:IIIQ growth rate of 4.0%. Read More

Oil prices and the federal funds rate typically spike before recessions. Both are likely to be causal factors, although the spikes’ timing and impact on the economy vary. Oil prices spiked before the 2001 downturn, but earlier than they typically do. Read More

Catherine Mann

The U.S. service sector is in the midst of a transformation similar to the one undergone by the manufacturing sector. Read More

According to the U.S. Commerce Department’s final estimate, the annualized growth rate of real GDP in 2004:IIIQ was 4.0%, up from the preliminary estimate of 3.9% and the final 2004:IIQ estimate of 3.3%. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Patrick Higgins Janet Miller

A useful first guess about the future spot price of a commodity is usually found in its current futures price. Read More

According to the preliminary estimate for 2004:IIIQ, real GDP rose an annual rate of 3.9%, up from the advance estimate of 3.7%. Read More

The U.S. finances its current account deficits by issuing financial claims— stocks, bonds, Treasury issues, bank accounts, etc.—to the rest of the world. Read More

David Altig Lawrence Christiano Martin Eichenbaum Jesper Linde

Macroeconomic and microeconomic data paint conflicting pictures of price behavior. Read More

According to the U.S. Commerce Department’s advance estimate, the annualized growth rate of real GDP in 2004:IIIQ was 3.7%. Read More

Paul Gomme Peter Rupert

Recent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data show labor’s share of income a historic low. Read More

Over the last 25 years, several industrialized economies have had the same experience—a decline in manufacturing employment. Since 1977, manufacturing jobs in the U.S. have fallen 20% and in the U.K. almost 50%. Read More

In September, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published its second biannual World Economic Outlook. Read More

Bad as the economic consequences of higher oil prices may be, the fog surrounding their future path compounds the problem. Read More

According to the U.S. Commerce Department’s final estimate, the annualized growth rate of real GDP in 2004:IIQ was 3.3%, up from the preliminary estimate of 2.8%. Read More

The U.S. current account deficit reached a record high in 2004:IIQ, renewing concerns that its continued growth could cause a flight from the dollar, adversely affecting economic growth, and complicating monetary policy. Read More

The preliminary estimate for 2004:IIQ revised GDP growth down from the 3.0% advance estimate to 2.8%, which was slightly higher than the Blue Chip forecast for the quarter. Read More

Because oil is an important input in the production process, a significant increase in oil prices can retard economic growth. Read More

Paul Gomme Peter Rupert

Economic theory says the average income of different regions should grow closer over time. Read More

The advance (initial) GDP estimate for 2004:IIQ, released July 30 by the Commerce Department, revealed that annualized real output growth was 3.0%. Read More

By recent estimates, the net international investment position of the U.S. was –$2.4 trillion in 2003, or –22.1% of our GDP. Read More

According to the U.S. Commerce Department’s final estimate, the annualized growth rate of real GDP in 2004:IQ was 3.9%, down from the preliminary estimate of 4.4%. Read More

Paul Gomme Richard Rogerson James B Thomson Randall Wright

The paper documents how cyclical fluctuations in market work vary over the life cycle and then assesses the predictions of a life-cycle version of the growth model for those observations. Read More

With oil trading around a record high of $40 per barrel, is another recession far behind? Read More

According to the preliminary estimate from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, real gross domestic product (GDP) rose an annual rate of 4.4% for 2004:IQ, up from the advance estimate of 4.2%. Read More

The advance estimate for real GDP growth in 2004:IQ was 4.2%, slightly above the previous quarter’s 4.1% final estimate but below the Blue Chip economists’ forecast of 4.3%. Read More

Real gross domestic product—the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the U.S.—increased an annualized rate of 4.1% in the fourth quarter of 2003. Read More

Although GDP growth has exceeded 4% over the last year, manufacturing is still in the doldrums. Read More

U.S. nonfarm employment has declined 1.8% since March 2001, the most recent peak in business activity. Read More

Michael D Bordo Joseph G Haubrich

This paper brings historical evidence to bear on the stylized fact that the yield curve predicts future growth. Read More

Ben R Craig James B Thomson William E Jackson III

Increasingly, policymakers are looking to the small business sector as a potential engine of economic growth. Read More

In contrast with the weak employment growth figures, national unemployment indicators suggest a gradually improving labor market. Read More

According to the Commerce Department’s revised estimate, the annualized growth rate of real GDP in 2003:IVQ was 4.1%, a modest increase from the 4.0% reported in the initial estimate. Read More

The advance estimate from the national income and product accounts revealed that real gross domestic product (GDP) rose a 4.0% annual rate during the fourth quarter of 2003, a little less than most forecasters had expected. Read More

President Bush’s December decision to eliminate the Section 201 steel tariffs on various carbon and alloy steel products refocused national interest on the domestic steel industry. Read More

Even with a benchmark revision, the final real gross domestic product (GDP) for 2003:IIIQ contained no surprises. Real GDP surged ahead 8.2%, the same as in the last estimate. Read More

Charles T Carlstrom Timothy S Fuerst

This paper analyzes the restrictions necessary to ensure that the interest rate policy rule used by the central bank does not introduce local real indeterminacy into the economy. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale Kent Smetters

This paper describes the deficiencies of the measures used to calculate the federal budget, make revenue and spending projections, and assess the sustainability of current fiscal policies. Read More

Sandra Pianalto

Sandra Pianalto, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, addressed the Akron Roundtable on November 20, 2003. She discussed the economy and the nature of economic change. Read More

The preliminary estimate from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis showed that real gross domestic product (GDP) increased during 2003:IIIQ an annual rate of 8.2%. Read More

According to business cycle indicators published by the Conference Board, the economy has grown recently, is growing now, and is expected to continue growing in the near future. Read More

The U.S. dollar recently depreciated to its lowest level ever against the euro, in response to fears that foreign financial flows into this country are slowing. Read More

Real gross domestic product (GDP) skyrocketed to an advance estimate of 7.2%, the highest growth rate since 1984:IQ and a full percentage point higher than most forecasters had expected. Read More

The future of domestic motor vehicle production was a critical issue in the recent United Auto Workers’ negotiations. Read More

The final estimate of real gross domestic product (GDP) for 2003:IIQ was 3.3%, revised up 0.2 percentage point from the preliminary release, with modest boosts in some sectors offsetting slight declines in others. Read More

The period after the 1991 recession, dubbed the “jobless recovery,” was not historically typical; the current episode, sometimes called the “job-loss recovery,” is even more anomalous. Read More

The preliminary estimate of real gross domestic product (GDP) for 2003:IIQ— the first of two planned revisions to the advance estimate that the Commerce Department issued in July— shows a greater increase in output growth than initially reported. Read More

As life expectancies have risen, meeting the needs of increasing numbers of older Americans has become a pressing concern. Read More

How does one measure the wealth of nations? Read More

The advance estimate from the national income and product accounts revealed that real gross domestic product (GDP) rose an annual rate of 2.4% during 2003:IIQ. Personal consumption expenditures boosted output growth. Read More

The conversion from the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) to the North American Industrial Classification (NAICS) took effect in June, creating major definitional changes for the industries previously reported under the SIC. Read More

According to the Commerce Department’s final estimate, real GDP increased an annual rate of 1.4% in the first quarter of 2003, matching growth in the last quarter of 2002. Consumer spending increased 2.0%. Read More

The preliminary estimate showed real GDP growing a modest annual rate of 1.9% in 2003:IQ, largely a result of consumer spending and residential investment. Read More

The advance estimate of the national income and product accounts puts real GDP growth a sluggish 1.6% (annual rate) in 2003:IQ. Read More

In the national income and product accounts’ final estimate for 2002:IVQ, real GDP grew a 1.4% annual rate. Read More

Does the futures market provide any clues about the prospective path of oil prices? Read More

The 2000 Census reported that U.S. per capita income was $21,587. Among the Fourth District’s 169 counties, only 21 registered per capita incomes above that figure. Read More

According to the preliminary estimate, real gross domestic product (GDP) grew an annual rate of 1.4% during 2002:IVQ. Read More

Oil, the world’s single most important energy source, is in limited supply. Read More

The advance estimate from the national income and product accounts shows that growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) slowed from 4.0% in 2002:IIIQ to 0.7% in 2002:IVQ (annual rates). Read More

Jerry L Jordan

Accounting scandals, executive misconduct, and poor management once-prosperous corporations have shaken investor confidence in corporate integrity, and worse, in the mechanisms that are supposed to ensure good corporate management. Read More

The final estimate of real gross domestic product (GDP) for 2002:IIIQ contained no surprises; the estimate of overall growth held an annual rate of 4.0%. Read More

Throughout the 1990s, the relative importance of auto manufacturing (vehicle assembly and the production of associated parts) increased in the Fourth District states of Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia, as well as the U.S. as a whole. Read More

On December 11, 2002, Chile signed a không lấy phí trade agreement with the U.S., removing tariffs on 85% of manufactured goods and 75% of agricultural produce, which the market has welcomed as a boost for Chile’s mainly export-oriented economy. Read More

The preliminary estimate showed that real gross domestic product (GDP) advanced an annual rate of 4.0% during 2002:IIIQ. Personal consumption expenditures rose 4.1% (annual rate) and made the largest contribution to real GDP growth. Read More

The U.S. seems to be emerging from the most recent economic frost a little faster than the rest of the world. As a consequence, our perennial current account deficit, which seemed dormant in 2001, is blooming again. Read More

The advance estimate of real gross domestic product (GDP), released October 31, revealed that output increased 3.1% during 2002:IIIQ (annual rate). Read More

The U.S. automobile industry has been experiencing considerable turmoil. Read More

According to the final estimate from the national income and product accounts, real gross domestic product (GDP) increased a 1.3% annual rate in 2002:IIQ, substantially lower than its vigorous showing in 2002:IQ. Read More

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA) of 2001 phases in tax cuts through 2010. Read More

Preliminary estimates of the national income and product accounts showed that real gross domestic product increased an annual rate of 1.1% in 2002:IIQ. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale

The better the information stockholders have about a firm’s prospective finances, the better their decisions on investing their money productively Read More

The advance estimate from the national income and product accounts shows that real gross domestic product (GDP) grew a 1.1% annualized rate during 2002:IIQ. Read More

With the economy moving toward recovery, price pressures will eventually build, and the Federal Open Market Committee will need to focus more keenly on price stability. Read More

Access to affordable health care is a significant problem facing the U.S. With health care costs rising, access to insurance that defrays the costs to consumers is now more important than ever. Read More

Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew an annual rate of 6.1% in 2002:IQ, the fastest pace since 1999:IVQ. Read More

The preliminary estimate from the national income and product accounts revealed that real gross domestic product (GDP) grew an annual rate of 5.6% during 2002:IQ. Read More

The National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession as a period of significant decline in total output, income, employment, and trade, usually ... Read More

The Buckeye State Poll, a monthly telephone survey of Ohio residents, asks a variety of questions on political, economic, and religious topics. Read More

The U.S. exchanges goods and services with the rest of the world through two distinct channels: crossborder trade and affiliate sales. Read More

Overall U.S. poverty rates for both individuals and families fell again in 2001. At 11.3%, the rate for individuals is the lowest since 1974. The family poverty rate of 8.6% is the lowest since the Census Bureau began calculating it in 1959. Read More

Federal receipts fell $44 billion between the first half of fiscal year (FY) 2001 and the first half of FY2002. Read More

Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew an annual rate of 5.8% in 2002:IQ, according to the advance estimate from the national income and product accounts released April 26. Read More

John Carlson

In spite of the recent recession, hopes for the New Economy have been little daunted. Surprisingly robust productivity growth during the recent downturn provides compelling new evidence that something truly fundamental is going on. Read More

The final estimate from the national income and product accounts shows that during 2001:IVQ, real gross domestic product grew an annual rate of 1.7%. Read More

Although President Bush’s steel products proclamation of March 5, 2002 highlighted the industry’s troubles, they have long been evident in the Fourth District, where seven steelmakers have declared bankruptcy in the last 18 months. Read More

The U.S. has financed its persistent trade deficits by issuing financial claims against its future output to the rest of the world. Read More

Economic conditions in the U.S. have always been linked to those of our major foreign commercial partners. Read More

The 2001:IVQ preliminary estimate of real GDP, released February 28, revealed a surprisingly robust 1.4% annual growth rate. Read More

The Congressional Budget Office projects that, under current tax and spending policies, the federal budget will show a small total deficit in fiscal years 2002 ($21 billion) and 2003 ($14 billion). Read More

Industrial production refers to the output of the economy’s manufacturing, mining, and utility sectors. Read More

The December trade deficit of $25.3 billion was $3.3 billion less than in November, primarily because of a $3.1 billion decline in imports. Read More

The advance estimates for the national income and product accounts, released January 30, have led many to ask whether the current recession may be over. Read More

The National Bureau of Economic Research, a U.S. organization that dates business cycles, recently announced that the current recession (shown as a shaded area on the charts above) began in March 2001. Read More

Ed Nosal Peter Rupert

Economies can’t grow without a sufficiently developed infrastructure, but how deep does the infrastructure have to be to make a difference? Read More

Paul Gomme

As part of a fiscal stimulus package, some members of Congress have recently proposed a temporary investment subsidy. Read More

The U.S. income tax was first enacted in 1861, abolished in 1872, reintroduced in 1894, and declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1895. Read More

Gross domestic product (GDP) decreased an annual rate of 1.3% in 2001:IIIQ. Read More

The Fourth District’s unemployment rate has diverged notably from the national trend in recent months. Read More

Preliminary gross domestic product (GDP) was revised downward 0.7 percentage point from the advance estimate; it fell a 1.1% annualized rate in 2001:IIIQ. Read More

Between 1979 and 1997, effective tax rates dropped for all income levels. During this period, 15 legislative changes were enacted, affecting both tax rates and tax bases; income grew rapidly, especially the upper end of the distribution. Read More

According to the advance estimate for 2001:IIIQ, real GDP fell an annualized rate of 0.4%, the first economic contraction since 1993. This figure suggests the economy may have slipped into a recession for the first time since 1991. Read More

The U.S. trade deficit shrank from $29.2 billion in July to $27.1 billion in August. This reflects a monthly improvement for goods, both exports and imports, in the balance of goods and services. Read More

Real GDP growth over the past four quarters was a paltry 1.2%, but even this was better than the 0.3% increase registered for 2001:IIQ. Read More

The recent economic slowdown has shrunk federal revenues, reduced projected budget surpluses, and drawn policymakers’ attention to a dilemma. Fulfilling benefit promises under Social Security and Medicare will be easier if the economy grows rapidly. Read More

Household spending, household employment, and median household income are often cited in the news as indicators of the economy’s health. But what exactly is a household? Read More

The preliminary estimate for the national income and product accounts (NIPA) for 2001:IIQ, released on August 29, paints a gloomier picture than the advance estimate for the quarter. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale

Gaps between the rich and poor grow once people hit retirement. Some say privatizing Social Security will increase wealth inequality among retirees. Read More

The advance estimate for the national income and product accounts, released July 27, reported that gross domestic product grew a meager annualized rate of 0.7% during 2001:IIQ. Read More

Some commentators have urged the Federal Reserve to help U.S. firms that export or that compete against imports by easing monetary policy and fostering a dollar depreciation. This is a bad idea. Read More

The final estimate from the National Income and Product Accounts for 2001:IQ reveals that real GDP grew an annual rate of 1.2% in that quarter, down slightly from the preliminary estimate of 1.3%. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Andrew Lo

This article examines the stochastic properties of aggregate macroeconomic time series from the standpoint of fractionally integrated models, focusing on the persistence of economic shocks. Read More

Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth was revised down 0.7 percentage point from the advance estimate to an annualized rate of 1.3% in 2001:IQ. The estimate of personal consumption growth was lowered slightly but remains healthy nearly 3%. Read More

High gasoline prices and California’s electricity shortages have focused attention on electricity generation and energy conservation. Read More

The advance estimate for the National Income and Product Accounts, released April 27, reported output growth of 2.0% in 2000:IQ—much stronger than had been expected. (The Blue Chip forecast for the first quarter was for less than 1% growth.) Read More

Preliminary data from Census 2000 show that the U.S. population grew 13.2% between 1990 and 2000. Every state’s population increased, but rapid growth was concentrated in the South and West. Read More

Although budget authority for discretionary federal outlays is established annually through the budgeting process, Congress enacts supplemental appropriations bills outside of the budget cycle. Read More

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services fell $6.3 billion in February to $27 billion as the result of a $0.9 billion increase in exports and a $5.4 billion decline in imports. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale

Federal surpluses have come as a pleasant surprise, but using them to finance additional government spending would be disastrous. Read More

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew a 1.0% annual rate in 2000:IVQ. Consumer spending was revised downward but remained healthy, with nearly 3% growth. Read More

Recent projections by the Congressional Budget Office place the cumulative 10-year (FY2002–11) surplus $5.6 trillion. This figure is more than $1 trillion higher than the estimate given last July for FY2001–10. Read More

Owen F Humpage

Since 1992, the United States has enjoyed sustained, rapid economic expansion characterized by rising labor force participation, booming net investment spending for information equipment and computer software, and strong productivity growth. Read More

Many economists believe that the current cooling in economic activity largely reflects an inventory correction that will pass fairly quickly and painlessly. Two observations support this prognosis. Read More

Since the mid-1980s, overall U.S. manufacturing exports have increased sharply as a share of gross domestic product, but their state-by-state performance has been uneven. Read More

According to the recently released preliminary estimate, real GDP growth in 2000:IVQ was somewhat weaker than reported in the advance estimate—1.1% compared to 1.4%. Read More

U.S. motor vehicle sales reached new highs in 1999 and 2000, but forecasters do not expect this trend to continue. The February 2001 edition of Blue Chip Economic Indicators reported a consensus forecasts sales would fall to 16.0 million in 2001. Read More

The recent troubles of Cleveland’s LTV Steel Corporation have brought regional focus to the health of the U.S. steel industry. Read More

Before 1976, the exchange rate between the U.S. and Canadian dollar was typically not far from one. The U.S. dollar appreciated significantly against Canada’s in 1976–85 and again between 1991 and the present. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich

Some financial failures occur when people don’t understand the risks they take. Others are simply bad luck. But the most important cases happen when private risks have an additional social aspect. Read More

While all seniors in the U.S. are covered by Medicare, not all younger Americans have health insurance. After rising steadily throughout the 1990s, the share of the population not covered by health insurance declined in 1999. Read More

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew a paltry 1.4% annual rate in 2000:IVQ. Despite this weak showing, the year still finished with a healthy fourth-quarter to fourth quarter growth rate of 3.5%. Read More

While many Americans are aware of the enormous overall U.S. trade deficit, few realize that our trade in services shows a surplus. The overall trade deficit results solely from our trade in goods. Read More

Jerry L Jordan

The information technology revolution offers a great opportunity to leap forward in our collective prosperity. All of us stand to benefit. Read More

In 2000:IIIQ, gross domestic product (GDP) grew a 2.2% annual rate, its slowest in four years. Read More

For 25 years, employers increasingly have turned to defined-contribution (DC) pension plans, partly because they are cheaper to administer and reduce their risks of funding pension coverage. But DC plans benefit employees as well. Read More

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew a 2.4% annual rate in 2000:IIIQ. Read More

Data are revised for a variety of reasons. Read More

Nominal GDP crossed the $10 trillion threshold in 2000:IIIQ, according to the advance estimate released late in October. Read More

Poverty, a persistent problem in the U.S., will soon be getting more attention, both nationally and locally. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff

Retirees are one of the wealthiest segments of the U.S. population, and today’s retirees have more wealth than any previous generation’s. Read More

Five years of strong economic growth have transformed the federal budget: Perennial deficits have given way to growing annual surpluses. January 1997 projections by the Congressional Budget Office showed a $171 billion deficit for FY2000. Read More

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew a 5.6% annual rate in 2000:IIQ. Read More

The elderly are now one of this country’s best-off population groups, largely because stock market values have surged and Social Security and Medicare benefits have been generous compared to contributions. Read More

Mark E Schweitzer Eric Thompson

Deregulation of electricity generation will offer consumers many advantages, including dramatically lower energy costs. Read More

Paul Bauer Apostolos Burnetas Viswanath CVSA Gregory Reynolds

Could the Federal Reserve lower its overall currency processing costs by reallocating its high-speed currency sorting volume? Read More

The preliminary estimate of GDP growth for 2000:IIQ, 5.3% (annualized), is 0.1 percentage point higher than the advance estimate, according to the August release. Read More

Owen F Humpage

Analysts caution that rapid foreign economic growth could induce a depreciation of the dollar, as international investors diversify their portfolios for higher returns abroad. Read More

The monthly U.S. trade deficit has been essentially unchanged since March, with a slight decline in the services surplus offset by a slight decline in the goods deficit. Read More

Jerry L Jordan

Economists should focus on the more interesting and useful question: How do we create the sort of environment in which innovation and the productive use of new technology thrive, thereby creating economic prosperity? Read More

More than 290,000 people in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania rely on agriculture for their livelihood. Read More

Gross domestic product increased a surprisingly strong 5.2% annual rate in 2000:IIQ, according to the advance estimate. Read More

Advances in communications and information technology are changing not only how we do business, but also where we do business. Read More

The final release of statistics on first quarter real GDP growth confirmed that 2000 started with a bang. Read More

The current economic expansion, the longest on record, has had only a slight impact on the share of the population living above the poverty line (the line was set $16,660 for a family of four in 1998). Read More

Longer life spans and earlier expected retirement imply that Americans will spend a larger fraction of their lifetime without incomeproducing work. Read More

The 2000:IQ preliminary GDP estimate confirmed the 5.4% growth rate of the advance estimate as well as the broad contours of the continuing economic expansion. Read More

Life expectancy in a given year is the average age a group of newborns would reach if subject to the age-specific death rates prevailing that year. Read More

Health, literacy, and economic growth are intimately connected. Read More

John Carlson Eduard Pelz

The average annual return of the S&P 500 index since 1994 has exceeded 25 percent. Read More

Gross domestic product increased a 5.4% annual rate in 2000:IQ, according to the advance estimate released in late April. Read More

The U.S. is the world’s largest debtor country, with net obligations exceeding $1.8 billion. Read More

David Altig

If you buy a lottery ticket, you usually wait to see if you’ve won before going on a spending spree. Read More

Conditions in the steel industry have improved over the last year, but firms and workers still feel the effects of the 1998 downturn triggered by economic collapse in Asia and Russia. Read More

The final estimate of 1999:IVQ real GDP growth is 7.3%, up 0.4 percentage point from February’s 6.9% estimate, itself revised up 1.1 percentage points from January’s advance estimate. Read More

Strong economic growth in the U.S. has produced a federal budget surplus for the second consecutive year: $124 billion for fiscal year 1999 on the heels of 1998’s $69 billion surplus. Read More

Owen F Humpage

Although Americans spent $1.3 trillion on foreign goods and services last year, many regard imports with hostility, preferring to “buy American.” Read More

GDP increased a surprisingly robust 6.9% rate in 1999:IVQ, according to the preliminary estimate released late in February. Read More

Strong economic growth in the U.S. has produced a federal budget surplus for the second consecutive year: $124 billion for fiscal year 1999 on the heels of 1998’s $69 billion surplus. Read More

Jerry L Jordan

We are in the midst of a great transition, from an age in which governments intervened in nearly every facet of economic affairs to one in which market forces not only make political borders transparent to commerce, they shape political policies. Read More

Gross domestic product (GDP) increased a 5.8% annual rate in 1999:IVQ, according to the advance (first) estimate, released late in January. Read More

The U.S. current-account deficit has increased sharply since 1997 and is likely to top $360 billion (approximately 3.5% of GDP) when final data for 1999 become available. Read More

The final estimate of 1999:IIIQ growth in gross domestic product, released in December, was 5.7%. Read More

The last century has witnessed major changes in how and where Americans work and live—and in the characteristics of our workers. Read More

By November’s preliminary estimate, gross domestic product grew an annualized rate of 5.5% in 1999:IIIQ. Read More

Think globally, obstruct locally… Protests against the latest round of negotiations sponsored by the World Trade Organization have thrust international trade into the headlines. Read More

Gregory Hess Kwanho Shin

We estimate the extent to which idiosyncratic and disaggregate macro shocks (such as regional and industry shocks) are not shared in the economy. Read More

The nominal U.S. trade balance on goods and services widened slightly in September. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale Bernd Raffelhuschen

The authors report each country's total intertemporal public liability as the sum of its explicit outstanding debt and the present values of its implicit liabilities-the excess of projected transfers and government purchases over tax revenues. Read More

The advance third-quarter estimate of GDP growth is 4.8%, slightly higher than economists’ expectations. Growth was broad based, with strong gains of 14.9% in business fixed investment and 12.4% in exports. Read More

Once upon a time ... there was a land filled with hard-working, creative people. Read More

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is the cross-border holding of assets that represent a controlling ownership of shares in a foreign business entity. Read More

The final estimate of second-quarter GDP growth is 1.6%, down from the 1.8% preliminary estimate. Read More

The rapid aging and slow growth of the developed world’s population will soon exert tremendous pressure on public pension and health care budgets. Read More

David Altig Peter Rupert

In the late nineteenth century, the economist Thomas Malthus made a simple prediction of economic theory that would result in the discipline being forthwith known as the dismal science. Read More

Since their record highs of 1996, agricultural prices as a whole have fallen about 21%. Read More

GDP growth in 1999:IIQ has been revised downward from an advance estimate of 2.3% to a preliminary estimate of 1.8%, which primarily reflects a higher estimate of imports and ... Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff

The authors consider Social Security's treatment of postwar Americans under alternative tax increases and benefit cuts that would help bring the system's finances into present-value balance. Read More

The U.S. current-account deficit, which expanded sharply in 1999:IQ, is likely to reach $310 billion by year’s end. Read More

An inflow of foreign capital has accompanied the persistent string of U.S. current-account deficits since 1982. Read More

Summertime (and the livin’ is easy) ... It’s hard to get excited about U.S. economic conditions when we are headed for vacation, in the middle of vacation, or nearing the end of vacation. Read More

What are the sources of American incomes? Since the end of World War II, labor income generally has averaged around 70% of total personal income. Read More

The advance estimate of GDP growth for 1999:IIQ is 2.3%, significantly slower than the 3.4% expected by analysts. Read More

The major components of spending in the U.S. are consumption, investment, and government spending on goods and services; net exports are fairly small by comparison. Read More

Wear sunscreen ... The Federal Reserve raised the target federal funds rate one-quarter of a point to 5% its June policy meeting. This action, however widely expected, was not universally endorsed. Read More

The prospect of electricity deregulation has already caused several mergers in the utility industry and may bring substantially lower costs to Fourth District consumers. Read More

The 4.3% final GDThe 4.3% final GDP estimate for 1999:IQ fell midway between the 4.5% advance estimate and the 4.1% preliminary estimate. Read More

Analysts often refer to the current account as a broad measure of our country’s international trade position, although it includes a few nontrade items. Read More

Every news account of the GDP figures— or so it seems—reinforces the common misperception that import spending lowers output. Read More

The 4.1% preliminary (second) estimate of real GDP growth in 1999:IQ was only slightly lower than the 4.5% advance (first) estimate released in April. A revision of 0.4 is not unusual. Read More

Faced with uncertain prospects for Social Security and Medicare, can baby boomers rely on large transfers from their parents and grandparents to finance their retirement? Read More

The advance (first) estimate of gross domestic product (GDP) for 1999:IQ shows strong economic growth continuing into the beginning of 1999. Read More

In the entertainment industry, there is fierce competition for consumers’ leisure time and dollars. Read More

What? Me Worry? ... You don’t need an opinion poll to tell you that people are worried about Kosovo, upset about violence, and concerned about the future of Social Security. Read More

Exports are of particular importance to the Fourth District’s economy. Read More

David Altig Jagadeesh Gokhale

On certain topics, confusion perpetually reigns. Everyone has a personal list, of course, but somewhere near the top of most is what to make of any debate that includes the words “Social Security.” Read More

Final GDP estimates for 1998:IVQ are little changed from the preliminary estimates of a month earlier. Read More

Golden eggs, golden omelets ... Productivity growth is the economist’s term for situations in which an economy can obtain more output than before from the same amount of input. Read More

Jeremy Greenwood

The author examines periods of rapid technological change for coincidences of widening inequality and slowing productivity growth. Read More

Jerry L Jordan

Mexico needs a stable standard of value. Indeed, no economy can achieve its potential without a stable standard of value. Read More

Michael Gort Jeremy Greenwood Peter Rupert

Gross domestic product today is only modestly bigger than it was 100 years ago, least if it’s measured in tons! While this may seem an absurd way to measure GDP, the point is that how economic variables are measured is important. Read More

At the end of fiscal year 1998, there was a surplus on the books of the federal government—the first in 28 years. Read More

Keep on truckin’ ... If the Dow Jones index accurately forecasts future economic conditions, its surge past 9700 in early March signals a continuation of the U.S. boom. Read More

In early January, the Blue Chip consensus forecast of GDP for 1998:IVQ was a solid annualized growth rate of 3.1%. Read More

The tax treatment of different demographic groups varies considerably under Social Security, also called Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI). Read More

As of January 10, the Blue Chip consensus forecast was a solid growth rate of 3.1% in 1998:IVQ. Read More

Increased concerns about the widening U.S. trade deficit can be understood by examining the 1998:IIIQ data on international transactions from different perspectives. Read More

Sigmund Freud has said that every normal person, in fact, is only normal on the average. So it is with business cycles ... Sooner or later, something will throw the U.S. economy off the brisk growth trajectory it has followed since 1995. Read More

The dollar’s strong appreciation since 1991 and recent global economic turmoil have dramatically intensified the rivalry between domestic and foreign steel producers for U.S. market share. Read More

The gross domestic product (GDP) grew a 3.7% seasonally adjusted annual rate in the third quarter of last year, adjusted for price changes. Read More

Preston McAfee

When a downstream firm buys an input supplier, it can reduce its costs of using that input. Other input suppliers typically respond by pricing more aggressively, given the demand reduction, which tends to lower input supply costs to other firms. Read More

With less than 12 months to go, computer users around the world are scrambling to prepare for Year 2000. Read More

Pump up the volume…The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report on November employment, released December 4, indicated that nonfarm payroll employment expanded by 267,000 people, more than double analysts’ typical estimate. Read More

Real gross domestic product increased a 3.9% annual rate in 1998:IIIQ, according to preliminary estimates released in late November. Read More

In 1997, Ohio’s state government collected $16 billion in tax revenues. This came to $1,468 per person, a little less than the national average of $1,660, and put Ohio in 35th place among the states. Read More

David Altig Alan Stockman

The authors estimate common and nation-specific components of technology shocks, real demand shocks, and combined (common and nation-specific) monetary shocks using quarterly data for Korea and the United States. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale

The Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) official projections indicate that paying benefits under current rules during the next 75 years will require a payroll tax hike of 2.2 percentage points. Read More

GDP growth was surprisingly strong in the third quarter of this year, least if the 3.3% advance estimate is compared with the October Blue Chip consensus forecast of only 2%. Read More

Market liquidity dominates the financial news these days, and for good reason. Read More

It is widely recognized that most sectors of the economy move up and down together over the business cycle, a trait known as comovement. Read More

Owen F Humpage

In 1987, after six straight years of large current-account deficits, the United States became a net debtor country. Read More

In his State of the Union address, President Clinton urged that prospective budget surpluses be reserved for rescuing Social Security. Read More

Two thumbs up ... Judging by the pandemonium breaking loose in financial markets and the headline coverage it is receiving, one would think the world as we knew it had come to an end. Read More

The pattern of capital flows and international asset ownership is intimately related to international saving patterns and investment opportunities. Read More

The revised estimate of real gross domestic product (GDP) for the second quarter was only 0.2 percentage point higher than last month’s preliminary estimate. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale

The United States’ economic performance during the last two years has been spectacular. Inflation remained quiescent despite rapid output growth and plunging unemployment. Read More

Any U.S. current-account deficit must be accompanied by a foreign capital inflow of equal magnitude. Read More

Since the beginning of the 1980s, the personal savings rate (the ratio of personal savings to disposable personal income) has steadily declined. Read More

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland moved to its present location 75 years ago, in September 1923. Read More

Substantial inventory accumulation and a surge in imports have accompanied the strong GDP growth of the last two years. Read More

New estimates of gross domestic product for 1998:IIQ revealed nothing new about the economy. Read More

Ana Castaneda Javier Diaz Gimenez Victor Rios Rull Jose

This paper quantifies the steady-state aggregate, distributional and mobility effects of switching the U.S. to a proportional income tax system. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff James Sefton Martin Weale

Answering the question of how much wealth inequality arises from inheritance inequality requires data that are unavailable and potentially uncollectable. Read More

As expected, the economy grew more slowly in the second quarter than in the first. Read More

By July 24, 1998, the United Auto Workers’ strike had affected nearly 200,000 employees General Motors’ North American Operations and Delphi Automotive Systems facilities ... Read More

Medicare is an important source of support for elderly Americans. Read More

Although it has accumulated surpluses in recent years, Social Security faces a future budget crunch. Read More

One way nations spend beyond their means is by incurring debts to the rest of the world. The U.S. current-account deficit indicates that Americans have been consuming in excess of their income by ... Read More

An embarrassment of riches ... In the not-too distant land of Cornucopia, an inventor named Henri Lagniappe found a way to increase the efficiency of power generation by a factor of five. Read More

Four frequently cited methods to trim federal entitlements are ... Read More

Demographic change will be the main determinant of budget allocations over much of the next century. Read More

According to the Commerce Department’s final estimate, real GDP grew 5.4% in 1998:IQ, a substantial upward revision from the previous estimate of 4.8%. Read More

Rocked by Southeast Asia’s economic crisis, Nhật bản sank deeper into recession during 1998:IQ. Read More

One of Ohio’s most important commodities is wheat, which accounted for $246.9 million, or 15%, of its total agricultural exports in 1996—third only to feed grains and soybeans. Read More

Neutrino Economics ... Today’s paper announced some big news about a little particle, the neutrino, that has transformed the universe—in theory. Read More

Revised GDP estimates, recently released by the Department of Commerce, show that the economy grew 4.8% in the first quarter, more than a half-point higher than was reported earlier. Read More

Many states are considering deregulating their electric utilities. California has already done so, and Ohio has placed legislation before both the Senate (SB 237) and the House (HB 732). Read More

Charles T Carlstrom Christy Rollow

Should the United States do more to increase its workers’ skills? Many say it should, arguing that subsidized training helps countries maintain flexible, productive workforces in the face of technological change and global competition. Read More

The U.S. economy grew much faster in the first quarter than most analysts anticipated. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale

Policymakers’ budget perspectives show a puzzling dichotomy. Read More

Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye ... Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the question before us is a simple one: Do overabundant money and credit creation threaten the U.S. economy with accelerating inflation and below-par performance? Read More

The Congressional Budget Office’s latest revenue and expenditure projections indicate a movement from deficit to surplus in the unified federal budget, despite a decline in revenue as a percent of GDP. Read More

Economic activity remains solid. The median forecast of economists participating in the Blue Chip survey is that real economic growth will slow from 3.7% in 1997:IVQ to a still healthy 2.4% in 1998:IQ. Read More

Generational accounts—the present values of future taxes minus prospective transfers (net taxes) per capita by age and sex—tell us how the burden of paying for government purchases is distributed across generations. Read More

The U.S. current account, a broad measure of our trade position, showed a $166.4 billion deficit in 1997. Most analysts expect the current account deficit to widen this year and next, for the reasons suggested on the previous page. Read More

Many analysts fret that the U.S. trade balance will deteriorate significantly over the next year or so. Read More

Nationally, the proportion of workers in the manufacturing sector is declining, while employment in the service industries is on the upswing. Read More

Terry J Fitzgerald Jennifer Ransom

During the first half of 1997, real output in the U.S. economy expanded a robust 4.3 percent annual rate. Read More

Historically, Kentucky has been a major player in the coal production industry, which provides more than half of the electric power used in the U.S. Read More

The growth of a country’s labor force, the expansion of its capital stock, and the pace of its technological improvement determine its capacity for economic advancement over the long term. Read More

Over the last 10 years, the price of Ohio farmland has shot up approximately 90%, substantially more than in neighboring states and well above the national increase of 57%. Read More

According to the Commerce Department’s preliminary estimate, the economy grew 4.3% in the fourth quarter—substantially above expectations. Read More

The Fourth Federal Reserve District produces a large share of the nation’s steel, cars, and trucks. In 1997, the Pittsburgh–Youngstown region was the country’s third-largest steel producing area, accounting for 13% of total U.S. production. Read More

Producing the nation’s output requires the use of capital and labor services. Read More

David Altig Alan Auerbach Laurence Kotlikoff Kent Smetters Jan Walliser

Fundamental tax reform remains a hot topic, for reasons that should come as no surprise. The current U.S. tax structure is complex, distortionary, and replete with tax preferences Read More

As the current business expansion enters its eighth year of growth above the economy’s long-term potential, capacity constraints are becoming an increasing concern. Read More

Sentimental fools? ... According to the Conference Board’s Survey of Consumer Sentiment, U.S. households are now more confident about the economy’s health than any time since 1969. Read More

The economy grew 3.1% in the third quarter, according to the Commerce Department’s final estimates. Read More

Stanley Longhofer

First-come, first-served bankruptcy rules are typically considered undesirable because they can lead to inefficient "runs" on a healthy firm's assets. This article argues runs have beneficial effect as well-improving lenders' monitoring incentives. Read More

The Commerce Department lowered its estimate of real GDP growth from 3.5% to 3.3% in 1997:IIIQ. Read More

The Congressional Budget Office projects that federal outlays as a share of GDP will decline from more than 20% to about 18.5% by the year 2007. Federal revenues will fall from almost 20% to 19%. Read More

The U.S. current account deficit requires an influx of foreign capital. Read More

My dinner with André ... “Of course. I’d be delighted to come to Washington for dinner. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale Benjamin Page John Sturrock

An examination of the continuing generational imbalance in U.S. fiscal policy, showing future generations will have to pay almost half of their lifetime labor incomes in net taxes to balance the government's book. Read More

The economy continues to show signs of vigor. Advance estimates from the Commerce Department indicate that real GDP grew an annualized rate of 3.5% in 1997:IIIQ, following an increase of 3.3% in the previous quarter. Read More

Most industrial countries entered the last recession later than the U.S. and recovered more slowly. Except for Nhật bản, however, they are now experiencing fairly solid growth. Read More

Policymakers have been keeping an eye on the nation's net national saving rate, which has been trending down over the last two and a half decades. Read More

In a pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) public pension program like the U.S. Social Security system, the elderly dependency ratio provides a crucial link between payroll tax rates and benefit levels ... Read More

During the first half og 1997, real GDP rose by $142 billion, translating into a 4.1% annual growth rate. Over this same period, real investment in business inventories totaled $141 billion, almost equaling the rise in real output. Read More

The Commerce Department's final estimate places second-quarter real GDP growth 3.3%, down a bit from the preliminary estimate of 3.6%. Read More

The U.S. merchandise trade deficit jumped unexpectedly in July, rising to $10.3 billion from $8.3 billion the month before. Read More

Terry J Fitzgerald

The literature on business inventory investment provides a good example of how theory and data interact in the ongoing process of research. Read More

Although the major indicators of the U.S. economic activity continue to point upward, analysts are keeping a wary eye on inventories. Read More

Paradigm Lost? ... What should we makde of the unexpectedly good macroeconomic performance of the U.S. economy in the last several years? Read More

David Altig Alan Auerbach Laurence Kotlikoff Kent Smetters Jan Walliser

This paper uses a new large-scale dynamic simulation model to compare the equity, efficiency, and macroeconomic effects of five alternatives to the current U.S. federal income tax. Read More

Jerry L Jordan

History will regard the last quarter of the twentieth century as a time when the world reawakened to one of Adam Smith’s most important observations. Read More

Unseasonable summer weather has been of great concern to Ohio farmers. Rainfall has varied widely from month to month, and temperatures have generally been below normal. Read More

Tobacco is nothing to sneeze in Kentucky, which is home to half of the nation's 124,270 tobacco farms. Read More

During the 1990s, nonresidential fixed investment (producers' durable equipment plus nonresidential structures) has surged. Read More

As expected, the pace of economic activity slowed in 1997::Q.. Preliminary estimates show that the economy grew 2.2% in the second quarter (down from a revised 4.9% the previous quarter). Read More

Fiscal policy in the balance ... Earlier this month, President Clinton signed into law two bills that collectively aim to balance the federal budget and slash the public's tax obligation by the year 2002. Read More

The U.S. current account deficit has increased thirteen-fold since 1982, reaching $148 billion in 1996 and nearly $164 billion (annual rate) in 1997:IQ. Read More

History is the standard (a tenuous one best) by which we often measure current macroeconomic performance. Read More

My dinner with Andre ... I really didn't mind that my friend was already 25 minutes late, or that the restaurant he had chosen was in a desolate section of the city. Read More

The economy shot up 5.9% in the first quarter, according to the Commerce Department's final appraisal. Read More

The coal mining industry - historically a predominant feature of the Wheeling, W. Va., area - is becoming an increasingly less important part of its economic landscape. Read More

Preliminary estimates show that the economy grew 5.8% in the first quarter, slightly faster than previously reported. Read More

Raising taxes and cutting benefits are politically unpopular options for restoring solvency to the Social Security system. Read More

Demographic projections indicate that the number of elderly retirees will grow sharply by 2025, but the number of young, working-age individuals will increase only slightly. Read More

The Hospital Insurance trust fund (Medicare - Part A), which covers hospital services, home health care, hospice stays, and skilled nursing services for the elderly, is in much deeper trouble than Social Security. Read More

Advance estimates released by the Commerce Department in late April show real GDP rising 5.6% in the first quarter - the largest gain in nearly 10 years and one that substantially exceeded expectations. Read More

Concerns about inflationary pressures in the labor market have made the Employment Cost Index (ECI) one of the most anticipated economic indicators. Read More

The surge in U.S. birth rates between the mid-1940s and mid-1960s implies that an increasing share of the population will be retired in the coming decades. Read More

David Altig Terry J Fitzgerald Peter Rupert

Just before the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) May 20 meeting, popular opinion about the near-term future of U.S. monetary policy was summarized by John 0. Wilson, chief economist Bank America Corp. Read More

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which took effect on January 1, 1994, will curtail most barriers to trade and investment between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. by the time it is fully implemented in 2004. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale

Medicare was established in 1965 to ensure that all elderly Americans have access to quality health care. Read More

If economic models are economists' stock-in-trade, the the assumptions used to construct them are their critical raw materials. Read More

International direct investment surged in the last 1980s. Both U.S. direct investments in foreign countries and foreign investments in the U.S. have been growing rapidly, with the former exceeding the latter by a widening margin. Read More

What goes around comes around ... Before anyone gets the wrong idea, let's be clear about one thing: This is not another essay declaring that business cycles are dead. Read More

The nineteenth-century historian Thomas Carlyle once suggested that economics was simply a matter of supply and demand. Read More

David Altig Jagadeesh Gokhale

This paper proposes a Social Security reform for the United States that gradually, but ultimately fully, privatizes the system. Read More

Migration patterns over the past seven years show that Rust Belt states continue to experience out-migration. Read More

Foreign economic activity continues its moderate expansion, while inflation pressures remain subdued. Read More

Jang Ting Guo Kevin Lansing

This article examines the welfare implications of some basic structural features of the U.S. tax code. The authors consider the tax deductibility of depreciation and the practice of taxing labor income differently than capital income. Read More

Jinyong Cai Jagadeesh Gokhale

A decomposition of the welfare loss from a capital income tax into its two components: the intertemporal (consuming today versus tomorrow) and the within-period or "static" (consuming durable versus nondurable goods). Read More

The U.S. Commerce Department recently lowered its estimate of fourth-quarter real GDP growth from 4.7% to 3.9%. Still, the economy's end-of-year performance remained well about the third-quarter's 2.1% pace. Read More

Between 1965 and 1973, U.S. annual productivity growth (measured as output per hour worked) averaged 1.5%. Read More

Observations that the dollar is over-valued imply that its current level is unsustainable and that its recent path is inconsistent with a growing U.S. current account (trade) deficit. Read More

The Fourth Federal Reserve District includes the eastern half of Kentucky, which, because of its coal supplies, has closer economic ties to the industrial economies of Pittsburgh and Cleveland than to the more agricultural western counties. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale

After months of wrangling, Congress and the administration recently reached an agreement on how to balance the federal budget by the year 2002. Read More

In like a lamb, out like a lion. According to advance estimates, real GDP grew an exceptionally fast 4.7% in 1996:IVQ, with gains in exports and personal consumption expenditures leading the way. Read More

Federal spending has consistently outpaced federal revenues since the 1970s. Although the opposite is true for the sum of state and local budget, the total national debt (both nominal and inflation adjusted) has mushroomed over the last 25 years. Read More

The Commerce Department recently pared its estimate of third-quarter economic growth from 2.2% to 2.0%. Read More

Steven P Cassou Kevin Lansing

This paper investigates a variety of objectives that are commonly used to motivate government fiscal action. Read More

David Altig Charles T Carlstrom

In this paper, we perform computational counterfactual experiments to examine the quantitative impact of marginal tax rates on the distribution of income. Read More

Steven P Cassou Kevin Lansing

This paper develops aquantitative general equilibrium model to assess the growth effects of adopting a flat tax plan similar to the one proposed by Hall and Rabushka (1985, 1995). Read More

The U.S. trade balance has been in deficit, on average, for the last 25 years. This is reflected in the behavior of U.S. gross saving and investment. Read More

According to conventional wisdom, U.S. government budget deficits compete against private investment for a fixed supply of loanable funds. Read More

According to initial Commerce Department estimates, the economy slowed to a 2.2% rate of growth in the third quarter, down from 4.7% in 1996:IIQ. Read More

With another round of negotiations between the major automakers and the unions winding down, a potentially large shock to Fourth Federal Reserve District employment appears to have been averted. Read More

David Neumark Elizabeth Powers

We attempt to draw inferences about the potential behavioral responses to means testing Social Security by examining the effects of the Supplementary Security Income (SSI) program for the aged on wealth accumulation and employment. Read More

Ayse Imrohoroglu Antonio Merlo Peter Rupert

In this paper, we consider a general equilibrium model in which heterogeneous agents specialize either in legitimate market activities or in criminal activities, Read More

Les Misérables ... A few decades ago, during a period of slow economic growth and high inflation, the economist author Okun added together the unemployment and inflation rates and dubbed the sum the Misery Index. Read More

Both the amount and the pattern of consumption by different age groups has undergone a substantial change in the U.S. Total consumption per capita for all ages was much higher in the 1980s than in the early 1960s. Read More

The Commerce Department's final GDP estimate for 1996:IIQ put real economic growth 4.7%, substantially above the first quarter's 2.0% rate. Read More

At any given moment, those who work and earn income do not necessarily have all of it available for their use. Read More

The 1980 returns exemplify how the state of the economy before a presidential election can affect an incumbent's ability to stay in office. Read More

Monetary policymakers are concerned with the relationships among real GDP, the unemployment rate, and inflation. Read More

The Commerce Department increased its second-quarter GDP estimate by $9.4 billion, lifting the quarterly growth rate from 4.2% to 4.8%. Read More

Close calls ... The Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee will meet on September 24 to review the state of the economy and to consider making changes in its chief monetary policy instrument, the federal funds rate. Read More

As a result of persistent current account deficits, the U.S. international investment position has shifted from a net credit of $265 billion in 1982 to a net debt of $775 billion in 1995. Read More

Whither government? ... Welfare as we know it is ending. The same can be said for agriculture, national defense, health care, and (though few public officials will openly admit it) Social Security. Read More

The U.S. is experiencing a capital spending boom, led by investment in information processing equipment, primarily computers. Business fixed investment has risen from 9% of GDP in 1991 to 11% thus far this year. Read More

The advance estimate for second-quarter GDP growth is a strong 4.2%, up more than 2 percentage points from the first quarter and almost twice the growth rate anticipated by most analysts when the quarter began. Read More

According to the Commerce Department's final figures, the economy expended a 2.2% annual rate in 1996:IQ. The initial estimate of 2.8% was revised downward primarily because of a massive drawdown of inventories. Read More

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections how that, under current fiscal policies, total federal revenue as a share of GDP will decline from 18.9% in 1995 to about 8.5% in 2001, and will remain that level through 2006. Read More

Preliminary data show the US current account deficit running a $142 billion annual rate in 1996:IQ. The current account includes trade in goods and services, net investment income, and unilateral transfers. Read More

Charles T Carlstrom Timothy S Fuerst

When the Federal Reserve System was established in 1914, part of its purpose was "to furnish an elastic currency," that is, a currency that could be quickly expanded or contracted as needed. Read More

Elizabeth Powers

Recent economic data, including downward revisions in first-quarter GDP estimates, suggest continued moderate growth with high levels of resource utilization. Read More

Fiscal deficits (or surpluses) influence economic growth, and public spending can boost productivity through wise investments in infrastructure. Read More

The Census Bureau estimates that the US population now stands 265 million - roughly 66 times larger than in 1790, when the first census was taken. Read More

Advance estimates released by the Commerce Department show real GDP rising 2.8% in the first quarter. substantially above the 1.5% that analysts had generally anticipated. Read More

Business fixed investment - necessary to build capital, promote innovation, and busy living standards - rose 7.4% in 1995, capping three years of above - average growth. Read More

Once upon a time, a husband and wife lived alone in the country, far away from the nearest town. Maynard and Philippa were a well-intentioned couple, serious and analytical. Before long, they learned that they were to be parents. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale

The recently developed method of generational accounting facilitates detailed measurement of fiscal policy?s impact on the intergenerational distribution of resources. Read More

David Altig Jagadeesh Gokhale

In an area as contentious as federal budget policy-witness the tortuous road to the just recently settled budget for fiscal year 1996-lawmakers agree about one thing: The Social Security system as we know it is unsustainable in the long run. Read More

Ohio started 1995 with one of its lowest unemployment rates in recent years - 4.5%. While that rate was not sustained, the state stayed consistently below the US average throughout 1995 and into 1996. Read More

Winter's recession fears have melted away, but forecasted growth rates - approximately 2% this year and next - remain below historic norms. Read More

Are we there yet? ... The constant dollar value of goods and services produced in the United States increased for the fifth consecutive year in 1995. Read More

Since World War II, average Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) contributions per worker have grown much faster than average hourly compensation. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Ann Dombrosky

The yield curve, which relates interest rates to notes and bonds of various maturities, is often used by economists and business analysts to predict future economic growth. But how reliable is it? Read More

Taxing matters ... I was far too busy to travel, so I had to settle for a video conference with my old friend Andre. Read More

Recent calls for simplifying the US tax code have sparked heated debate about the relative merits of consumption based taxes and flat tax rates. Read More

Many US policymakers are worried about the effect of changing demographics on the Social Security system. Read More

Recent data - though sketchy and tentative - and anecdotal accounts indicate that economic activity weakened in the last months of 1995. Read More

On the road (again). . .America, it is said, is a nation that keeps reinventing itself. Read More

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the U.S. share of the world's export trade has inched up over the last decade. Read More

David Altig

In November, the U.S. Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act of 1995. The bill provided a fiscal package that would, according to Congressional Budget Office projections, balance the federal budget by fiscal year 2002. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale Kevin Lansing

Consider the following investment scenario. You tum over 10 percent of your salary each year to an investment manager who pools your contributions with those of others to form something that looks like a mutual fund. Read More

National debt doubled from about 35% of gross domestic product in 1980 to more than 70% in 1995. Read More

According to the Blue Chip panel of economists, U.S. economic activity is likely to slow this year from an anticipated 3.3% increase in 1995. Growth forecasts for 1996 center on a range of 2.5% to 2.7% but exhibit a fairly wide dispersion. Read More

On the outs... It has long been conventional in politics to portray oneself as an outsider. Read More

The yield curve on Treasury securities - which describes rates of return different maturities in ascending order - has flattened dramatically since the third quarter of 1994. Read More

Economists participating in the Blue Chip survey anticipate a 2.4% rate of real economic growth in 1995:IVQ-well below last quarter's 4.2% advance. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff John Sabelhaus

The rate of saving in the, United States has declined dramatically in recent decades. Read More

Advance estimates of real GDP suggest that the economy rebounded in the third quarter from its lackluster performance in 1995:IIQ. Read More

Since their inception in the 1930s, U.S. agricultural policies have been aimed stabilizing the domestic food supply and farmers' incomes. Read More

Friedrich Breyer Ben R Craig

This article tests the subset of public choice models for social security that have empirical implications. Read More

Stanley Longhofer

That a firm's initial equityholders often emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings with more value than the absolute priority rule would suggest is now a generally accepted fact. Read More

Michael F Bryan

Although a majority of U.S. lawmakers now favor the goal of balancing the federal budget within the next decade, there is little consensus on how to achieve it. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale

Many developed countries operate comprehensive public pension programs to protect the elderly against a wide range of adverse economic circumstances. Read More

Jang Ting Guo Kevin Lansing

This paper shows that the optimal steady-state tax on capital income in a neoclassical growth model can be positive, negative, or zero, depending crucially on the level of monopoly profits and the degree to which profits can be taxed. Read More

Steven P Cassou Kevin Lansing

This paper develops a quantitative theoretical model for the optimal provision of public capital. Read More

Elizabeth Powers

Most of the research that uses income to measure economic well-being shows that while unemployment has a strong positive effect on poverty rates, inflation has very little effect. Read More

David Altig Charles T Carlstrom

In this paper, we employ a quantified general equilibrium model to study the effects of changes in marginal income-tax rate structures on the distribution of income. Read More

Kevin Lansing

This paper develops a dynamic general-equilibrium model with productive public capital to help account for differences in the business cycle characteristics of public- versus private-sector expenditures in postwar U.S. data. Read More

Elizabeth Powers

In the 1960s, economic growth seemed to be the tonic for poverty. From 1960 to 1969, real gross domestic product (GDP) grew a 4.1 percent average annual rate, while the percentage of all persons in poverty declined an annualized 5.9 percent. Read More

Kevin Lansing

An recent years, analysts and policymakers have voiced concern that public investment in the United States may be too low. Read More

Ian Gale

In late July 1994, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began an unprecedented sale of the airwaves. Large segments of radio spectrum (frequencies) were sold in a series of auctions, enabling firms to provide new telecommunications services. Read More

Michael F Bryan John Martin

Although economists share a common science, their roles in society vary a great giảm giá. Academic economists expand our understanding of the purpose and operation of markets. Government economists use this knowledge to guide policies. Read More

David Altig Charles T Carlstrom

On the wish list of many members of the new Congress is an income tax system characterized by constant marginal tax rates, typically referred to as a flat-tax system. Read More

Alan Auerbach Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff John Sabelhaus David Weil

An analysis of the changes since 1960 in the share of Americans' resources that are annuitized, which has declined slightly for younger Americans but has risen dramatically for the elderly. Read More

Jang Ting Guo Kevin Lansing

The real business cycle (RBC) approach to the study of aggregate fluctuations is now a well-established paradigm in macroeconomics. Most RBC models abstract from government fiscal policy altogether or treat it as some exogenous stochastic process. Read More

Charles T Carlstrom

Few things are as important to Americans as good medical care. In 1992, we spent about 14 percent of our national output on health-related services, and by the year 2000, mat share is expected to reach nearly 19 percent. Read More

Jang Ting Guo Kevin Lansing

An analysis of various schemes for simplifying the U.S. tax system, which finds that a uniform tax system performs almost as well as a system with separate taxes on labor and capital incomes, provided that a depreciation allowance is maintained. Read More

Jang Ting Guo Kevin Lansing

A demonstration that the assumed structure of taxation can have dramatic effects on economic welfare and on the stability of the steady state in a dynamic general-equilibrium model of optimal fiscal policy. Read More

Charles T Carlstrom

In 1965, Congress enacted Medicare and Medicaid to ensure that poor and elderly Americans would not be denied access to health care. Read More

Elizabeth Powers

A longitudinal study examining how the level of AFDC benefits and the per-child increment affect births. Although the findings support the "AFDC benefits cause births" hypothesis... Read More

Ian Gale

Since 1986, airline carriers have exercised the right to buy and sell takeoff and landing slots airports. Questions remain, however, about the optimal way to allocate these slots. Read More

David Altig Jagadeesh Gokhale

Every so often in the course of public affairs, we reach a defining moment, beyond which our final decisions have the potential to shape legislative and cultural reality for decades to come. Read More

Kevin Lansing

Recent empirical evidence suggests that the stock of public-sector capital may be an important input to private production. Read More

David Altig Jagadeesh Gokhale

Approaching the halfway mark of fiscal year (FY) 1994, the Clinton administration's first major piece of budget legislation — the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (OBRA93) — appears to be a smashing success. Read More

Alan Auerbach Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff

Whereas U.S. budget and deficit projections report government receipts and expenditures for only a year a time, generational accounts reveal long-term implications of prevailing fiscal policies for intergenerational wealth distribution. Read More

Michael F Bryan John Martin

Uncertainties always cloud the economic horizon, and current conditions are no exception to that rule. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale Lydia Leovic

The aging of the U.S. population portends steep increases in the demand for health care services well into the next century. Read More

Laurence Kotlikoff Jagadeesh Gokhale

The authors show that given current policy, today's and tomorrow's children could end up paying as much as 70 percent of their lifetime income to the government, whereas the current elderly will pay only about 25 percent on average. Read More

Finn Kydland

This paper describes some recent findings about cyclical behavior of aggregate labor market and its relation to overall business cycle. The basic theoretical framework is the neoclassical growth model with its central component. Read More

David Altig Jagadeesh Gokhale

On August 5, the U.S. Senate cleared the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (OBRA93), one day after the House of Representatives had done likewise. Read More

Alan Auerbach Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff Erling Steigum Jr

This paper uses generational accounting to assess Norway's fiscal position. Generational accounting measures the remaining lifetime net tax burdens facing different living generations. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale

The surging federal budget deficit and health care reform proposals have been the subjects of choice in recent public policy debates. Read More

Paul Bauer Ian Gale

From the earliest days of air travel in the United States, the federal government has regulated many aspects of the industry. Read More

Charles T Carlstrom

Few issues facing society touch as many lives as health care. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Paul Wachtel

Since 1989, U.S. commercial banks have shifted their portfolios away from commercial loans toward government securities. Read More

Owen F Humpage

The federal debt keeps rising, like a monster from the sea, and now threatens to take a $ 12,700 bite out of each of us. Read More

David Altig Charles T Carlstrom

Temporarily suspending indexation of personal income-tax code is often suggested as a means for raising federal revenues. The authors argue this method of taxation is inefficient in that it is inferior to direct increases in marginal tax rates. Read More

Katherine Samolyk Humes Rebecca Wetmore

Although by most conventional economic standards the recent recession is two years past, the health of the economy remains a concern to policymakers. Read More

Mark E Schweitzer Adam Werner

In his State of the Union address, President Clinton called for a broad-based energy tax to help reduce the federal budget deficit. Read More

David Altig Jagadeesh Gokhale

Virtually all government policies alter the allocation of economic resources. Read More

Alan Auerbach Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff

Unlike the federal budget, which typically measures receipts and expenditures for one year a time, generational accounts and lifetime tax rates focus on long-term intergenerational wealth redistribution. Read More

David Altig

In mid-February, President Clinton will outline his administration's first, and much anticipated, economic plan. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale Erica Groshen David Neumark

Hostile takeovers may have significant implications for long-term employment contracts if they facilitate the opportunistic expropriation of extramarginal wage payments. Read More

Neil Bania Paul Bauer Thomas Zlatoper

Relatively little effort has gone into examining how hub location affects the level of service and degree of competition found airports in the system. Read More

Neil Bania Paul Bauer Thomas Zlatoper

In this paper, we analyze the service provided by the 13 largest U.S. passenger airlines to the 100 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas in 1989. Read More

Alan Auerbach Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff

Economists and policymakers have been expressing concern of late about the prospects for U.S. economic growth. Foremost among their concerns is the recent decline in U.S. saving. Read More

David Altig

Over the past decade and a half, public discussion of U.S. fiscal policy has been dominated by a growing obsession with the level and trend of government borrowing, manifested in federal budget deficits and the outstanding stock of public debt. Read More

Jerry L Jordan

A learned early in my career as a business economist that perhaps the worst answer an economist can give to a question is, "I don't know." Read More

David Altig Charles T Carlstrom

We examine the efficiency and welfare implications of shifting from a linear marginal tax rate structure to a discrete rate structure characterized by two regions of flat tax rates of 15 and 28 percent. Read More

Randall Eberts Lydia Leovic

In recent months, Midwestemers have consistently told pollsters and politicians that their No. 1 concern is jobs. Read More

Jeffrey Hallman Joseph G Haubrich

Edmund Burke's comment is no less true today than it was in 1774. One need only observe political candidates' perennial attempts to tar their opponents with the "tax and spend" brush to know that Burke had gotten it right more than two centuries ago. Read More

David Backus Patrick J Kehoe Finn Kydland

We provide a theoretical interpretation of two features of international data. Read More

William P Osterberg

I perform an empirical analysis of Euler equations for the firm's choices of capital, labor, hours, and debt. Financial structure has real effects , since taxes favor debt. Read More

Daniele Franco Jagadeesh Gokhale Luigi Guiso Laurence Kotlikoff Nicola Sartor

This paper considers the implications of the current course of Italian fiscal policy for existing and future generations of Italians. Read More

Michael F Bryan John Erceg

Following a string of small advances that began early last year, the pace of economic expansion, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), picked up in the first quarter. Read More

Jagadeesh Gokhale

As massive budget deficits continue to push the national debt to record levels, Americans have grown increasingly concerned about how lawmakers' seemingly irresistible urge to spend now and pay later may be compromising the nation's economic future. Read More

David Altig Michael F Bryan

Advanced economies are characterized by long-run trends in the level of gross domestic product (GDP) that can be predicted with virtual certainty. Read More

Alan Auerbach Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff

Our previous study (Auerbach, Gokhale, and Kotlikoff [1991]) introduced the concept of generational accounting, a method of determining how the burden of fiscal policy falls on different generations. Read More

John Erceg John Martin

In this political season, there are as many prescriptions being written for the economy as there are would-be healers. Read More

David Altig Susan M Bryne Katherine Samolyk

Forecasting short-run economic activity is a tenuous business. Though all economic contractions and expansions have certain well-defined characteristics, history never completely replicates itself. Read More

Randall Eberts Timothy J Gronberg

Wagner's hypothesis of an expanding public sector as an economy develops is tested using pooled time-series cross-sectional data for U.S. states from 1964 to 1986. Read More

Paul Bauer

The single most important factor in determining a nation's standard of living in the long run is the productivity of its resources (primarily labor and capital). Read More

John Erceg Lydia Leovic

The economy's mixed performance in recent months has led to a growing perception that a recovery has not yet begun, or that its sustainability is threatened. Read More

Laurence Kotlikoff Jagadeesh Gokhale

In hiring new workers, risk-neutral employers equate the present expected value of each worker's compensation to the present expected value of his/her productivity. Read More

Alan Auerbach Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff

Despite recent attempts to impose discipline on the federal budget-making process, federal budget deficits have continued to escalate over the past several years. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Andrew Lo

This paper examines the stochastic properties of aggregate macroeconomic time series from the standpoint of fractionally integrated models, focusing on the persistence of economic shocks. Read More

Gerald Anderson

A decade ago, some business analysts began to accuse U.S. managers of concentrating too much on current profits and too little on enhancing their firms' long-run prospects. Read More

Finn Kydland

Over the past 10 or 15 years, academic interest in business cycles has recovered to a level not matched perhaps since the 1930s. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich

Changes in the efficiency of the financial system can greatly affect the overall economy. A simple real business cycle framework shows how banks can be a source, rather than just a filter, for output shocks. Read More

Katherine Samolyk Humes Rebecca Wetmore

Although the 1980s ushered in the second-longest economic expansion in U.S. history, regional economic performance was uneven during the decade. Read More

David Altig Katherine Samolyk

Saving, so advised the proverbial ant to the spendthrift grasshopper, allows an individual to "prepare today for the wants of tomorrow." Read More

Charles T Carlstrom Jagadeesh Gokhale

Most increases in U.S. government consumption since World War II, except for those associated with wars, have been permanent. Read More

John Erceg Lydia Leovic

The latest economic indicators are signaling an end to the recession that began last July. According to most forecasters, a recovery has already begun, or is about to begin shortly. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich

The anticipated economic recovery is haunted by the specter that banks, under pressure from regulators and shareholders, will make too few loans to reignite the economy. Read More

Michael F Bryan John Martin

In December 1987, GM closed five auto assembly plants in the United States, including one in Norwood, Ohio. Read More

Alan Auerbach Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff

An application of generational accounting to fiscal policies that feature intergenerational redistribution. Read More

William P Osterberg

The last day of 1990 was an important date for sports franchises. Read More

Alan Stockman Linda Tesar

This paper develops a two-country real business cycle model and confronts it with an extensive set of empirical observations. Read More

Randall Eberts Erica Groshen

Until the National Bureau of Economic Research (the official arbiter of business cycles) decrees it, we cannot be certain that history will record the current economic downturn as a recession. Read More

John Carlson

Nothing complicates the life of an economist quite like institutional change. When institutions change, patterns of behavior change, and long-standing economic relationships may break down. Read More

Alan Auerbach Jagadeesh Gokhale Laurence Kotlikoff

This paper presents a set of generational accounts that can be used to assess the fiscal burden that current generations are placing on future generations. Read More

John Erceg

The U.S. economy has been buffeted in the past few months by uncertainties surrounding the Persian Gulf War and its effects on crude oil supplies and by a strained financial sector domestically. Read More

Paul Bauer Susan M Bryne

Once again the United States has been jolted by an oil price shock. Since Iraq's August 2 invasion of Kuwait, the cost of crude has soared as high as $41 a barrel. Read More

Gerald Anderson John Erceg

Business analysts should be aware that the survey of capital spending plans published by the U.S. Department of Commerce has several limitations as a forecast of quarterly and annual fixed investment. Read More

David Altig

As of the coming tax year, U.S. taxpayers may no longer deduct personal interest expense when calculating taxable income. Will this change, resulting from the Tax Reform Act of 1986, increase the saving rate in the nation? Read More

Gerald Anderson Michael F Bryan Christopher Pike

Soaring oil prices have caused speculation about the prospects for a national recession this winter. Read More

Jinyong Cai Jagadeesh Gokhale

This paper examines two proposals to correct the risk-taking incentives embedded in the current deposit insurance system and to provide protection to the deposit insurance fund. Read More

John Erceg Lydia Leovic

The Fourth District Economists' Roundtable met last month to discuss the economic outlook in the wake of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Read More

Michael F Bryan Susan M Bryne

Between the mid-1960s and early 1980s, the age distribution of the U.S. labor force was changed dramatically by the inrush of the baby-boom generation. Read More

Randall Eberts

Is it possible to predict national recessions by following the employment performance of specific states or regions? Read More

Sanjai Bhagat Richard Jefferis Jr

We document shareholder support for wealth-decreasing changes in corporate governance in the form of antitakeover charter amendments. Read More

Paul Bauer

This study presents new evidence on the relationship between capacity utilization and inflation in order to provide a proper framework for understanding the complexities involved. Read More

Joseph G Haubrich Robert King

Can nominal contracts create monetary nonneutrality if they arise endogenously in general equilibrium? Read More

Brian Cromwell Irene Wirkus

Have the Reagan-era cutbacks in federal aid to state and local governments resulted in decreased economic efficiency and social equity, or have they had just the opposite effect, as some economic analysts would argue? Read More

John Erceg Paul J Nickels

Forecasters attending the most recent Fourth District Economists' Roundtable expect a stronger long-term growth path for the economy than experienced in past months, with brightened prospects for manufacturing following last year's slowdown. Read More

David Altig

Is the U.S. Social Security system more like a pension plan, wherein Social Security taxes represent a form of premiums for its contributors, or more like a tax and transfer system? Read More

Edward Stevens

Short-term bond yields have moved above long-term bond yields over the past year. Read More

John Erceg Paul J Nickels

The consensus forecast among economists attending the most recent Fourth District Economists' Roundtable calls for continuing slow growth well into 1990 followed by a more rapid growth in output by late this year. Read More

Julia Melkers Randall Eberts

Vital to a region's long-run economic growth is the ability of its manufacturing sector to improve product quality and to introduce more technologically advanced products. Read More

David Altig Steven Davis

We analyze the interest rate and savings effects of fiscal policy in an overlapping generations framework that accommodates two observations. Read More

Gerald Anderson Michael F Bryan

The U.S. economy has been awash in foreign investment for nearly the entire decade of the 19805. Read More

W Lee Hoskins

In a recent speech to a Toronto business group, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President W. Lee Hoskins presented his prescription for attaining maximum sustainable economic growth in the coming decade. Read More

Mary Deily Wayne B Gray

A regulatory agency enforcing compliance in a declining industry might recognize that certain plants would close rather than comply, and that these closings would impose large costs on the local community. Read More

Mary Deily Dennis Jansen

Recent theoretical and econometric developments allow estimation of dynamic cost functions that include optimal adjustment of quasi-fixed factors. Read More

Erica Groshen Barbara Grothe

Mergers and acquisitions have both positive and negative effects on a region's industrial structure. Read More

Randall Eberts Timothy J Gronberg

An examination of the relationship between the number of local governments within local labor markets and their expenditures. Read More

Erica Groshen Alan Krueger

An examination of the intensity of supervision in the workplace and its effect on the pay of nonsupervisory employees through the use a wage survey of the hospital industry. Read More

Paul Bauer

Deregulation of the airline industry has produced wide-ranging changes that have created benefits and some problems for the public. Read More

Brian Cromwell

A test of whether the enactment of a dedicated tax leads to higher payroll and wages for public employees, by means of survey results from the local mass-transit industry. Read More

Brian Cromwell

The author examines and summarizes empirical evidence from two recent studies of the mass-transit industry that suggest federal capital subsidies have important effects on infrastructure decisions of state and local governments. Read More

Chien Nan Wang

During the past few years, a number of less developed countries (LDCs) have had difficulty repaying their foreign debt. Read More

Paul Bauer Thomas Zlatoper

Using a model developed to examine the determinants of air fares, the authors discuss the relationship between airline industry competitiveness and fare increases. Read More

Alan Stockman

An evaluation of the state of real business cycle theory, with an outline of useful directions for further research and a discussion of economic policy implications. Read More

Brian Cromwell

Study of how state and federal grants affect maintenance policies of local mass-transit providers, showing that private owners of transit capital devote significantly greater resources to maintenance than do public owners of similar capital. Read More

Paul Bauer

A decomposition of observed total factor productivity (TFP) growth that examines changes in returns to scale, cost efficiency, and technology and that develops several decompositions using production and cost frontiers. Read More

James Hoehn

A modification of existing sticky-wage models to account for the observed cyclical behavior of real wages by means of a model that introduces productivity factors into nominal-wage contracts. Read More

Brian Cromwell

An examination of capital policies in the public and private sector through analysis of the scrappage decisions of local mass-transit providers, showing that the structure of federal grants has a direct impact on scrappage rates. Read More

Randall Eberts

Although the current business expansion has spawned a resurgence in Ohio manufacturing, fewer factory jobs are being created than in previous growth periods. Read More

Owen F Humpage

Does U.S. intervention have a lasting effect on the foreign-exchange value of the dollar that is independent of monetary policy actions? Read More

Patricia Beeson Randall Eberts

A methodology is developed for constructing quality-of-life comparisons for metropolitan areas in which the full bundle of an area's attributes is valued, rather than the typical method of focusing on individual characteristics. Read More

William P Osterberg James B Thomson

An examination of the impact of increased capital requirements on bank portfolio behavior the impact of increased capital requirements on portfolio behavior is generally ambiguous. Read More

Gerald Anderson

The increasing purchase of U.S. assets by foreigners in recent years has been blamed on the currentaccount deficit, has been attributed to the Japanese, and has caused alarm about loss of U.S. economic independence. Read More

Paul Bauer Mary Deily

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Federal Reserve prepare the two most widely disseminated indexes of capacity utilization. Read More

John Scadding

An analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce's provisional estimates of GNP as estimates that are contaminated with measurement error. Read More

Paul Bauer Mary Deily

Capacity-utilization measures can be useful in evaluating industry price pressures, investment, and war mobilization capabilities. In this first article of a two-part series, the authors define and examine some of these measures. Read More

Owen F Humpage

The international debt situation involves questions about financial arrangements and about resource adjustments. Read More

Mary Deily

Examination of plant-closing decisions of integrated steel firms in the U.S. from 1977-1987 to determine whether firm characteristics influenced either probability or timing of plant's closing during this decade of significant industry contraction. Read More

Paul Bauer

An overview of the airline industry's early adaptations to deregulation using a best-practice cost function approach; measures cost efficiency and changes in total factor productivity growth for airlines in the 1970s and early 1980s. Read More

Gerald Anderson

Will this year's improvement in U.S. foreign trade be double, triple, or even quadruple last year's gain? Read More

William P Osterberg

An analysis of a q model of investment in which financial structure affects firm value, using a perfect foresight model of general equilibrium that includes a debt-related agency cost. Read More

John Erceg Theodore G Bernard

Despite a two-year deficit reduction plan, government projections for the five-year federal budget outlook still show large deficits. Read More

Mary Deily

A study of how excess capacity in steel industry has persisted because of high exit barriers that have delayed industry's contraction; includes a discussion of effects of current trade protection and pension policies on size of exit barriers. Read More

Randall Eberts Timothy J Gronberg

An examination of the relationship between the number of local governmental units and the share of personal income going to local government expenditures, considering competition among both general-purpose and single-purpose government units. Read More

Douglas Dalenberg Randall Eberts

Public infrastructure deterioration has an important effect on urban economic development. Read More

Randall Eberts John Swinton

Much has been written and said about the "decline" of manufacturing in America. Read More

Mary Deily

The development of a test for whether an industry reduces capacity by first closing its highest-cost plants, using plant-level data from the U.S. steel industry. Read More

John Scadding

An examination of the provisional estimates of real GNP growth, concluding that these early estimates are not efficient forecasts of the final GNP numbers. Read More

Gerald Anderson

The foreign-exchange value of the dollar has been depreciating for more than two-and-a-half years. Read More

Paul Bauer

A study of the determinants that influence where airlines establish hubs in the hub-and-spoke networks that developed in the industry, with identification of the quantitative effects of these determinants. Read More

Paul Bauer

The current performance of the U.S. airline industry with regard to safety, fares, and service has been a topic of widespread concern among policymakers and the public. Read More

Gerald Anderson John Carlson

Earlier this year, foreign central banks made very substantial purchases of U.S. securities. Read More

Erica Groshen

This paper decomposes the observed wage difference between male and female workers into the portions associated with three types of segregation and with the individual's sex. Read More

Erica Groshen

A discussion of the role played by service exports in sustaining a regional economy, with the contention that its growth reflects a natural and inevitable response to rising wealth. Read More

John Erceg William G Murmann

The economy is in the fifth year of an expansion that has been characterized by a relatively moderate inflation rate, by moderate growth in output, and by the continuation of large trade and federal deficits. Read More

Randall Eberts Michael S Fogarty

A discussion of whether public outlays influence private investment, modeling the timing and effectiveness of public infrastructure as a local policy instrument. Read More

Gerald Anderson

Agriculture has always been a showpiece of American technology, efficiency, and productivity growth. Read More

Thomas M Buynak

Forty million Americans-about one third of the work force-have private, employer-sponsored pensions that are insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Read More

Paul Bauer

A summary of the theory behind airline deregulation, and a look the future evolution of the airline industry as it adapts to its new environment. Read More

Amy Durrell Philip Israilevich K J Kowalewski

A sharp drop in the value of the dollar since February 1985 has created hopes that there will be an increase in net exports that will fuel economic gains both in Ohio and the nation. Read More

Philip Israilevich

A regional analysis of the steel industry with emphasis on the economic performance of minimills and integrated mills. Read More

Patricia Beeson Michael F Bryan

Alice and the Dormouse in Lewis Carroll's classic story offer a lesson about human nature that can be applied to our economy. Read More

Patricia Beeson Stephen Husted

A study of whether states differ in terms of technical inefficiency in their manufacturing sectors. Read More

Paul R Watro

Recent corporate profits from current production could be viewed as weak or strong, depending on how they are measured. Read More

Theodore G Bernard

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), a part of the U.S. Commerce Department, produces the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) statistics. Read More

Michael F Bryan

In the last 10 years, the world auto market has been undergoing possibly the most dramatic transformation since assembly line production was introduced in 1913. Read More

James Siekmeier

As a nation, Americans save a smaller portion of income than residents of most developed, không lấy phí-market economies. Read More

Philip Israilevich

Regulators base electricity prices or rates on the average operating cost of producing electricity and on a "fair" rate of return on capital for a given year. Read More

K J Kowalewski

An estimation of a life cycle cum rational expectations model that allows for uncertain future interest rates. The results show that the model is strongly rejected using post World War II U.S. data. Read More

K J Kowalewski

Since 1981, business activity has been cycling through high and low points so often that the casual observer might get the impression that the economy has become unstable. Read More

Michael L Bagshaw

There have been many studies and papers written about the effects of seasonal adjustment on the relationships among variables. Read More

James Hoehn James J Balazsy Jr

The series methods are used to determine what information Ohio and national statistics convey about the current and future state of the regional economy. Read More

Paul Gary Wyckoff

As the nation's program of medical assistance for the poor, Medicaid, enters its 20th year, many fundamental policy questions about the program are still being worked out. Read More

Gerald Anderson

The crisis atmosphere that surrounded the international debt situation during the early part of the 1980s seems to have dissipated. The prospects of a major disruption in servicing international debt seem much smaller now than two or three years ago. Read More

Michael F Bryan

Some policymakers continue to favor the idea of using trade barriers to protect US. manufacturing industries. In some measure, this view is based on a perception of underlying weakness in the US. manufacturing sector. Read More

John Carlson Edward Stevens

Interest payments on the federal debt have grown faster than the economy since 1974. Read More

John Carlson Edward Stevens

An examination of the various factors that have determined the level and growth of the federal debt over the past 40 years, with some perspective on future levels of federal debt. Read More

James Hoehn James J Balazsy Jr

A time series methodology is used to understand the Ohio economy by assessing various indicators of economic activity in Ohio. These can be identified and quantified through simple methods applicable to other regional economies, as well. Read More

Michael F Bryan

The late 1960s and the 1970s were, by most conventional measures, profitable years for American farmers. The domestic economy experienced relatively strong growth. Read More

Paul Gary Wyckoff

A review of the economic literature on the impact of revenue sharing on local government expenditures, a critique of previous explanations of this pattern, and a summary of a new bureaucratic theory. Read More

John Carlson

A day doesn't pass without some public discussion of the federal deficit. Advocates of immediate deficit cutting use terms like 'explosive' and 'unstable' to describe the debt burden, suggesting imminent catastrophe. Read More

Amy Kerka

For U.S. steel manufacturers, 1983 was not a banner year; one-third of U.S. steelworkers were on layoff, it was the industry's second consecutive unprofitable year, and the market share of imports set a record high. Read More

Michael F Bryan Owen F Humpage

The United States is currently experiencing the strongest economic recovery since the Korean War, with virtually no increase in the rate of inflation. Read More

Philip Israilevich

The energy crisis of the 1970s had a dramatic effect on the comparative costs of electrical utilities across the nation. Read More

Paul Gary Wyckoff

Although Congress and the administration are always talking about tax reform, there is currently heightened interest in new, all-inclusive approaches to the problem. Read More

Robert Schnorbus Lorie Jackson

A popular belief in urban development is that the service sector provides a perpetual source of employment growth. Read More

Daniel A Littman

Proposals for a coordinated industrial policy, designed to enhance productivity and competitive position of U.S. economy, have attracted many supporters. Industrial policy will require an agency to plan and execute governmental directives. Read More

Michael F Bryan Owen F Humpage

At the urging of U.S. government, the Japanese restricted exports of new cars to United States in 1981. Designed to protect jobs in U.S. auto industry, these voluntary export restraints (VERs) have done so the expense of American consumers. Read More

Lawrence Slifman

Much of the strength in domestic demand during the first half of 1984 was in the consumption sector. This is not unusual for a recovery. Read More

Michael F Bryan Owen F Humpage

In recent years, many ailing US. industries have blamed their ill health on foreign competition and have sought a cure in limiting the flow of imports. Read More

Karen Horn

Policymakers face many important decisions that will have a major effect on national economic performance in the years ahead. Read More

Paul Gary Wyckoff

In this article, economist Paul Gary Wyckoff examines the pros and cons associated with three alternative measures of capital-stock needs: technical estimates,based on the judgments of experts (such as safety engineers and urban planners)... Read More

Robert Schnorbus

The U.S. economy steamed into its second year of recovery, with little perceptible reacceleration in inflation. Read More

Owen F Humpage

The precarious international debt situation clouds the economic outlook, worrying bank regulators and complicating international commerce. Read More

Robert Schnorbus Sandra Pianalto

The pattern and composition of the national economic recovery are among the most important elements shaping local economic recoveries. Read More

Michael F Bryan

The virtue of không lấy phí trade is one concept that nearly every economist advocates. Read More

Paulette Maclin Joanne Bronish

Twenty-nine economists met the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland this March to discuss the economy. Read More

Michael F Bryan

Since the late 1970s, the U.S. auto market has suffered a severe decline. Total auto sales (domestic and foreign) have fallen from the highs of over 11 million units in 1977 and 1978 to an anemic average of 8.5 million units since 1980. Read More

Paul Gary Wyckoff

Since the days of the Dust Bowl, policy analysts and policymakers have worried that uninformed and/or indifferent farmers might wear out the very resource most crucial to their livelihood-the soil. Read More

Amy Kerka

If nothing is done to bailout our social security system, by 1984 Americans might not receive continued timely payments. Read More

Gerald Anderson

The U.S. coal industry has taken on an increasingly important role in recent years as a source of energy. Read More

The trigger price mechanism (TPM), implemented early in 1978, was devised to detect imports of steel unfairly low prices and trigger the administrative relief provided by law. Read More

Gerald Anderson Owen F Humpage

Nations engaged in không lấy phí international trade experience a long-term rise in their real incomes, but often the expense of temporary resource-adjustment and income-redistribution problems. Read More

Michael F Bryan Owen F Humpage

The United States is embarking on an unprecedented increase. in peacetime military spending. The program has prompted heated discussions about the implications of defense spending for real output, employment, and prices. Read More

William Gavin

The current budget process is likely to produce large budget deficits in fiscal year 1982 and thereafter. The budget deficit is the residual from the taxing and spending policies of the federal government. Read More

Owen F Humpage

The high-employment budget measures federal government receipts, expenditures, and the associated surplus or deficit that would result if the economy always operated its potential or full-employment level of output. Read More

Robert Schnorbus

Municipal debt grew dramatically between 1968 and 1978-a period when gross capital formation by state and local governments was ebbing. Read More

Owen F Humpage

Multinational corporations have grown rapidly since the late 1950s and have become an important factor affecting international economic events. Read More

Mark Sniderman

The U.S. unemployment insurance system operates through plans under the primary control of the individual states. Consequently, taxes, benefits, and eligibility requirements vary greatly throughout the nation. Read More

Owen F Humpage

The Reagan administration has set itself to the herculean task of reducing the growth of federal spending. Read More

Robert Schnorbus

The financial condition of state and local governments has been strained in recent years by inflation, a growing demand for public services, and a generally unresponsive tax structure. Read More

Steven Plaut

One of the most controversial topics debated in the United States today is the dramatic fall in productivity growth in recent years. Read More

Owen F Humpage

The steepness of the second-quarter decline in real economic activity and the prospects for a slow recovery from the current recession with little relief from inflation have raised concerns about the financial health of state and local governments. Read More

Roger Hinderliter

In recent years, a relatively low rate of growth of real business investment has troubled U.S. economic performance. Read More

Steven A Monzel

The regional impact of a recession is determined largely by the industrial structure of the regional economy. Read More

Gerald Anderson

The United States accomplished a massive $21·billion improvement in its non-oil trade balance in 1979. More rapid growth of foreign economies compared with the U.S. economy was a major cause of improvement in non-oil trade. Read More

Paul R Watro

Regulatory changes and financial innovations in recent years have fostered increased competition within the banking industry and, indeed, among all financial institutions. Read More

A rapid chain of events since late January has added uncertainties to an already uncertain economic outlook for 1980. Read More

Owen F Humpage

The president sent his budget recommendations for fiscal year (FY) 1981 to Congress on January 29, 1980. Outlays are expected to equal $615.8 billion in FY 1981, up from $563.6 billion in the current fiscal year. Read More

Roger Hinderliter

Through the fall of 1979, a surprisingly resilient economy time-and-again forestalled an announcement that a recession was upon us. Read More

What is meant by the business cycle?

Business cycles are a type of fluctuation found in the aggregate economic activity of a nation -- a cycle that consists of expansions occurring about the same time in many economic activities, followed by similarly general contractions (recessions).

What are the 4 cycles of the business cycle?

The four stages of the cycle are expansion, peak, contraction, and trough. Factors such as GDP, interest rates, total employment, and consumer spending, can help determine the current stage of the economic cycle.

What is the business cycle quizlet?

The business cycle is a model decribing the recurring and fluctuating levels of economic activity that an economy experiences over a long period of time. There are four phases in the business cycle - the upswing, the boom, the downswing, and the trough.

In which stage of business cycle the price is highest?

Peak. The peak phase follows the expansion in a business cycle. The peak of the business cycle is the instance right before key economic indicators start to fall. At this time, prices are their highest, and the economy can "overheat," meaning businesses can no longer satisfy consumer demands. Tải thêm tài liệu liên quan đến nội dung bài viết The business cycle is primarily concerned with changes in the level of overall prices over time.

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What is meant by the business cycle?

What are the 4 cycles of the business cycle?

What is the business cycle quizlet?

In which stage of business cycle the price is highest?

Review The business cycle is primarily concerned with changes in the level of overall prices over time. ?

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