“Taken together, the evidence presented here suggests that the relationship between initial UI claims and Google Trends has continued to hold post-pandemic. What does this imply for the current situation in which initial UI claims have increased but the Google Trends unemployment topic has not? While the two measures of labor market health do not…

“S&L government expenditures represent a significant portion of aggregate GDP and fulfill an essential role in the provision of public goods and services. S&L government spending is often thought to be procyclical and recover only sluggishly following recessions. We docu­ment that this pattern did not systematically emerge until the mid- 1980s. In discussing possible explanations…

“The CRE office sector is substantial, with an estimated value of $3.2 trillion.17 Should firms reduce their office space requirements to reflect the reality of employees’ WFH preference, the CRE office sector could suffer a contraction, posing a risk to financial institutions that hold loans or CMBS secured by office properties. In fact, should offices contract…

“Since early 2022, the Federal Open Market Committee has increased the target range for the federal funds rate from 0%-0.25% to 5%-5.25%. The higher fed funds rate has driven up interest rates on financial instruments (e.g., Treasury bonds, certificates of deposit and corporate bonds) and loans. Perhaps most notably for everyday households, the 30-year fixed-rate…

“Our results indicate that news signals derived from central bank speeches can help explain volatility and tail risk in both equity and bond markets. Speech-implied news seem to carry information to which markets react – particularly in abnormal GDP and inflation regimes. We find no evidence that speeches resolve uncertainty. These findings underpin the importance…

“While offices face plenty of challenges over the coming year, the risks to the sector and to bank lenders in general don’t appear widespread at this stage. Nevertheless, bank regulators seem to be keeping a close eye on these developments, mindful of past crises where real estate was at the center. In a March 6…

“According to the May Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF), the consensus predicts that headline and core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price inflation will slow further in 2023, but that the decline in core inflation will be slower. The consensus predicts that headline (all items) inflation will slow to 3.4% in the fourth quarter of 2023 from a…

Overall Economic Activity “Economic activity was little changed overall in April and early May. Four Districts reported small increases in activity, six no change, and two slight to moderate declines. Expectations for future growth deteriorated a little, though contacts still largely expected a further expansion in activity. Consumer expenditures were steady or higher in most…

“The U.S. financial sector is still in the early stages of integrating AI into its operations, so there is much anticipation and conjecture as to what will come next. Bank supervisors, while noting many of the potential pitfalls of banks’ use of AI-based applications, have conveyed optimism about the technology’s potential benefits.”

“How do employment targets affect firm dynamics? What is the relationship between inventor migration, and local productivity and knowledge spillovers? How are surplus gains from inventions distributed? These were among the questions addressed by economists during a recent Richmond Fed research conference.”

“In this post we summarize the main results of our contribution to a recent e-book, “The Making of the European Monetary Union: 30 years since the ERM crisis,” on the economic and financial crises in Europe since 1992-93, and focus on the spillovers of those crises onto the United States and the global economy. We find…