Recently added articles from FRBSF Economic Letter:
Recent developments in mortgage finance.
Oct 26, 2009; ... As the U.S. housing market has moved from boom in the middle of the decade to bust over the past two years, the sources of mortgage funding have changed dramatically. The government-sponsored enterprises--Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae--now own or guarantee an overwhelming share ...
Gauging aggregate credit market conditions.
Oct 19, 2009; ... The Federal Reserve and other central banks have responded to the current financial crisis by taking a range of aggressive policy actions aimed at reviving credit markets. In particular, the Fed has pushed the federal funds rate, its key policy instrument, to historically low levels ....
Disagreement about the inflation outlook.
Oct 05, 2009; ... Disagreement among economic forecasters about the future path of inflation has risen substantially since the start of the recession. The nature of this disagreement varies with the forecast time horizon, with some forecasters expecting much lower short-run inflation and others anticipating ...
Predicting crises, Part II: did anything matter (to everybody)?
Sep 28, 2009; ... The enormity of the current financial collapse raises the question whether the crisis could have been predicted. This is the second of two Economic Letters on the topic. This Letter examines research suggesting that early warning models would not have accurately predicted the relative ...
Predicting crises, Part I: do coming crises cast their shadows before?
Sep 21, 2009; ... The enormity of the current financial collapse, widely described as a bursting bubble, raises the question whether the crisis could have been predicted, possibly permitting action to offset its effects. In the first of two Economic Letters on the subject, we look at developments in the ...