Reports

“Although food inflation has eased in recent months, it remains persistently high. Labor-intensive processed food items have accounted for the bulk of recent increases in grocery prices, and tight labor market conditions have put upward pressure on wages and contributed to higher food production costs. If household budgets tighten and demand for food at restaurants…

“GDP measures the value of the final goods and services produced within a country. That is, GDP is the sum of consumption, investment, government spending and net exports.” “Although GDP and its changes are the most popular indicators of a nation’s overall economic output, economists have long recognized that it is an imperfect measure of overall economic well-being. For…

“Using an occupational probability of computerization, we measure a firm’s ability to replace labor with automated capital. Our evidence suggests that the potential to automate a workforce enhances operating flexibility, allowing firms to hold less precautionary cash. To provide evidence for this mechanism, we exploit the 2011–2012 Thailand hard drive crisis as an exogenous shock…

“The pandemic era increased the percent of renters behind on rent but did not substantially change the composition of those behind across a variety of characteristics such as education and income. Renters behind only in 2021 were broadly similar to those also behind in both 2019 and 2021 across a range of characteristics correlated with…

“Our preliminary findings suggest that, across industries, the decline in job openings may be more related to hiring challenges rather than quit rates. Industries that have had to fight harder to hire workers may see more resilience in labor demand and a slower decline in job openings as the labor market cools. But industries experiencing…

“In January 2012, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) adopted a 2% inflation target. The inflation target they chose was based on the percentage change in the all-items (headline) personal consumption expendi­tures price index (PCEPI). The FOMC noted that deviations from the 2% target rate were likely in response to economic and financial developments, but…

“The tight U.S. labor market has been one of the most significant economic stories coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Headline unemployment was 3.4% in January 2023, the lowest rate since April 1969. With output back above pre-pandemic levels, demand for labor is high, and the weight of available evidence suggests that employers are struggling…

“We have documented the potential vulnerabilities of banking institutions to fire sales initiated in the NBFI sector when considering both direct spillovers (fire sales of assets that are also held by banks) and indirect, “second-round” spillovers (fire sales that induce further fire sales by other NBFIs that in turn hurt banks). Our analysis sheds light…

“These results imply innovative insights for monitoring NBFIs: (a) monitoring of direct exposures may not be sufficient, as risks from indirect channels of exposure can be significant during periods of stress; (b) these exposures are likely heterogeneous across bank holding companies, with the heterogeneity likely driven by differences in business models.” “Of course, the picture…

“The results show that wages inform estimates of trend inflation. The weight on wages was highest around 1980, drifted down through the 2000s, and returned to its average value from 1976 to 1985 by 2022. This pattern is reminiscent of the pattern in concerns over wage developments in inflation discussions, as the possibility of a…