Reports

Overall Economic Activity “Overall economic activity increased slightly in early 2023. Six Districts reported little or no change in economic activity since the last report, while six indicated economic activity expanded at a modest pace.” Labor Markets “Labor market conditions remained solid. Employment continued to increase at a modest to moderate pace in most Districts…

“Why is market liquidity so important? While daily — and sometimes dramatic — fluctuations in Treasury prices, such as the “flash crashes” of October 2014 and September 2019, affect traders’ bottom lines, price volatility stemming from a shock like that in 2020 can have far more dire consequences for the entire economy. If, in the…

In a Review article published in January, St. Louis Fed economist Victoria Gregory examined which workers exited the labor force after separating from their jobs around the Great Recession or the pandemic recession. She also looked at their labor force status one year later. “I find that in both recessions, workers who left the labor force shortly after their…

“The intellectual framework adopted by central banks after the 2008 crisis does not yet appear to have de-anchored inflation expectations. But it would be costly to wait until de-anchoring begins to alter the framework. Warning signals have already emerged in recent inflation expectations data. The loss of the inflation anchor, with its attendant consumer and…

“Weekly portfolio capital inflows to emerging-market economies fell sharply as the COVID-19 pandemic shook the global economy in March 2020.” “The drop was comparable to that during the depths of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, based on data for a sample of 24 emerging-market economies compiled by Emerging Portfolio Fund Research and used here…

“So don’t read too much into the personal saving rate in the monthly data. Today’s 4.7 percent rate may or may not return to pre-pandemic levels, and consumer spending could prove more fragile than the $1.1 trillion in “excess” savings suggests.”

“In its 2022 Annual Report to Congress, the Office of Financial Research discussed how inflation, monetary tightening, and market volatility elevated financial system risk in 2022. As we begin 2023, OFR’s senior financial analysts Dagmar Chiella, Hashim Hamandi, and Ruth Leung explain five areas of risk they’re currently monitoring.”

“The results in this paper highlight the need to incorporate data on prices of both owner- and renter-occupied properties and rents in any analysis of potential overvaluation in the housing market. As we have shown, without data on the price of renter-occupied properties, one cannot construct a meaningful price-rent ratio, which may result in mistaking…

“The world’s population recently reached 8 billion people—the culmination of a century of rapid population growth. Whereas it took 125 years for the world’s population to double from 1 billion (in 1803) to 2 billion (in 1928), it took only 47 years to reach 4 billion in 1975, and another 47 years to reach 8…

“Call reports—regulatory filings in which commercial banks report their assets, liabilities, income, and other information—are one of the most-used data sources in banking and finance. Though call reports were collected as far back as 1867, the underlying data are only easily accessible for the recent past: the mid-1980s onward in the case of the FDIC’s FFIEC…