Recently added articles from Economic Review (Kansas City, MO):
Has multi-market banking changed the response of small business lending to local economic shocks?
Jan 01, 2009; ... The consolidation of the U.S. banking industry has greatly increased the importance of large multi-market banking organizations relative to smaller, single-market banks. Economists have conducted many empirical studies of the effects of this shift, including the impact on the ...
Do U.S. consumers really benefit from payment card rewards?
Jan 01, 2009; ... Payment card rewards programs have become increasingly popular in the United States. Nearly all large credit card issuers offer rewards to customers for using their cards, as do more than a third of depository institutions for using debit cards. Recent surveys suggest that many consumers ...
Recession catches rural America.
Jan 01, 2009; ... As the recession intensified in 2008, rural economies held firm. Through the first half of the year, strong commodity prices supported robust farm incomes and contributed to relatively stronger gains on Main Street. Moreover, the housing correction was less intense than in urban areas, and ...
Developing a liquid market for inflation-indexed government securities: lessons from earlier experiences.
Jan 01, 2009; ... This article reviews the experiences of a few countries that have issued inflation-indexed securities and draws some common lessons about promoting market liquidity. The first section broadly describes the inflation-indexed security programs in a number of developed countries and ...
Detecting recessions in the great moderation: a real-time analysis.
Sep 22, 2008; ... The nature of the business cycle, particularly in the United States, has changed dramatically over the past several decades. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the U.S. economy often whipsawed up and down. Since then, real economic activity stabilized considerably, entering a period economists ...
The federal reserve's role in retail payments: adapting to a new environment .
Sep 22, 2008; ... The U.S. retail payments system is in the midst of a transformation. The shift from paper to electronics, the emergence of new instruments and payments channels, the rise in non-bank participation, the change in risk profiles--all are elements of this new landscape. The Federal Reserve ...
The affordability of homeownership to middle-income Americans.
Sep 22, 2008; ... From 1971 through mid-2007, the nominal national sales price of housing grew almost eightfold. Controlling for inflation, this represented a near doubling in the relative price of housing. The retrenchment in prices that began in 2007 has so far remained small compared to the earlier ...
Can markets improve water allocation in rural America?
Sep 22, 2008; ... Water, one of the most fundamental resources for economic activity, covers about three-fourths of the earth's surface--but only 2.5 percent of that amount is considered fresh water. While freshwater supplies in the United States are relatively abundant, increasing demand and drought, ...
Monetary policy transparency and private sector forecasts: evidence from survey data.
Jun 22, 2008; ... I. MONETARY POLICY TRANSPARENCY AND PREDICTABILITY Central banks have been motivated to provide more information about monetary policy to the public, in part, because improved transparency may increase the effectiveness of policy by increasing financial markets' ability to ...
Can smart cards reduce payments fraud and identity theft?
Jun 22, 2008; ... I. PAYMENTS FRAUD, IDENTITY THEFT, AND PAYMENT AUTHORIZATION Payment fraud is costly to all payment participants and has indirect costs that affect all members of society. Identity theft often leads to payment fraud, which is made possible because the authorization process fails ...
The growth and volatility of state tax revenue sources in the Tenth District.
Jun 22, 2008; ... I. PERFORMANCE AND COMPOSITION OF STATE TAX REVENUES State tax collections are closely related to the economic health of both a state and the nation. When times boom, revenues abound. But when the economy takes a downturn, revenues tend to follow. However, economic downturns ...
Is commercial real estate reliving the 1980s and early 1990s?
Jun 22, 2008; ... I. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE 1980s AND EARLY 1990s? Although commercial real estate has always been cyclical in nature, the 1980s and early 1990s stand out as a major episode of overbuilding. For example, booming construction during the early 1980s eventually caused large increases ...
What is the optimal inflation rate?
Mar 22, 2008; ... In the late 1970s and early 1980s, many countries, including the United States, experienced high inflation. A broad consensus emerged that this performance was unacceptable, and monetary policymakers around the world adopted policies designed to bring inflation down. With inflation ...
Understanding the effects of the merger boom on community banks.
Mar 22, 2008; ... The merger boom in the U.S. banking industry has caused the number of banking organizations in the nation to fall by nearly a third since 1990. Most of this contraction has involved small community banks, whose numbers have fallen by more than 3,000 banks. A common perception is that most ...
How is the rise in national defense spending affecting the Tenth District economy?
Mar 22, 2008; ... In 2007, the United States spent more than $650 billion on national defense. Even after adjusting for inflation, this was the largest annual amount since 1945, surpassing previous post-World War II peaks reached during the Korean, Vietnam, and Cold Wars. Defense spending has risen rapidly ...
Will farmland values keep booming?
Mar 22, 2008; ... Lean supplies, strong export activity, and vibrant demand both at home and abroad have pushed crop prices to record highs, offsetting today's spiraling production costs. As a result, farm profits and investments have soared, and farmland values have boomed. But commodity markets ...
Maintaining stability in a changing financial system: some lessons relearned again?
Jan 01, 2008; ... It is a pleasure to be in Sydney today to participate in this meeting and to offer my perspectives on some of the recent events in financial markets and their implications for financial stability. Over the past three decades, we have experienced an increased number of financial crises in ...
Has the behavior of inflation and long-term inflation expectations changed?
Jan 01, 2008; ... From 1975 to 1980, inflation in core (nonfood and non-energy) consumer prices rose sharply as crude oil prices more than tripled. Yet, as crude oil prices quadrupled from late 2001 to 2007, core consumer price inflation remained essentially flat. Some observers have attributed the ...
PCE and CPI inflation differentials: converting inflation forecasts.(Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index)(Consumer Price Index)
Jan 01, 2008; ... The Federal Reserve recently announced it will begin to release quarterly inflation forecasts based on the Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index. As Chairman Bernanke said, the PCE index is generally thought to be "the single most comprehensive and theoretically compelling measure ...
Will rural prosperity prevail in 2008?
Jan 01, 2008; ... The rural economy was strong in 2007. Record farm incomes were fueled by rising ethanol demand and by stronger export demand, which was driven in part by a weaker dollar. Farmers used the year's higher profits both to strengthen their financial conditions and to boost investment in land ...