Recently added articles from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review:
The impact of inflation and unemployment on subjective personal and country evaluations.
May 01, 2009; ... The authors use data from the Gallup World Poll to analyze what determines individual assessments of past, present, and future personal and country well-being. These measures allow the analysis of two dimensions of happiness data not previously examined in the literature: the ...
A journal ranking for the ambitious economist.
May 01, 2009; ... The authors devise an "ambition-adjusted" journal ranking based on citations from a short list of top general-interest journals in economics. Underlying this ranking is the notion that an ambitious economist wishes to be acknowledged not only in the highest reaches of the profession, but ...
Do donors care about declining trade revenue from liberalization? An analysis of bilateral aid allocation.
May 01, 2009; ... Many developing-country governments rely heavily on trade tax revenue. Therefore, trade liberalization can be a potential source of significant fiscal instability and may affect government spending on development activities--at least in the short run. This article investigates whether ...
Supply shocks, demand shocks, and labor market fluctuations.
May 01, 2009; ... The authors use structural vector autoregressions to analyze the responses of worker flows, job flows, vacancies, and hours to demand and supply shocks. They identify these shocks by restricting the short-run responses of output and the price level. On the demand side, they disentangle a ...
More money: understanding recent changes in the monetary base.
Mar 01, 2009; ... The financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007 took a turn for the worse in September 2008. Until then, Federal Reserve actions taken to improve the functioning financial markets did not affect the monetary base. The unusual lending and purchase of private debt was offset by the ...
Foreign direct investment, productivity, and country growth: an overview.
Mar 01, 2009; ... The authors review the empirical literature that studies the relationship between foreign direct investment, productivity, and growth using aggregate data and focus on two questions: Is there evidence of a positive relationship between foreign direct investment and national growth? And ...
Quick exits of subprime mortgages.
Mar 01, 2009; ... All holders of mortgage contracts, regardless of type, have three options: keep their payments current, prepay (usually through refinancing), or default on the loan. The latter two options terminate the loan. The termination rates of subprime mortgages that originated each year from 2001 ...
Firm volatility and credit: a macroeconomic analysis.
Mar 01, 2009; ... This paper examines a tractable real business cycle model with idiosyncratic productivity shocks and binding credit constraints on entrepreneurs. The model shows how firm volatility increases in combination with credit market development. It further generates the observed comovement of ...
Three funerals and a wedding.(Statistical data)(Company rankings)
Jan 01, 2009; ... The U.S. economy continues to face substantial turmoil. Financial markets are under unusual stress. Wall Street has been racked by seismic change. Uncertainty over the future prospects for the U.S. economy has caused consumers and businesses to pull back on discretionary consumption and ...
The fed, liquidity, and credit allocation.(Federal Reserve Board)
Jan 01, 2009; ... The current financial turmoil has generated considerable discussion of liquidity. Moreover, it has been widely reported that the Federal Reserve played a major role in supplying liquidity to financial markets during this distressed time. This article describes two ways in which the Fed has ...
Disallowances and overcapitalization in the U.S. electric utility industry.
Jan 01, 2009; ... Regulation of an industry often produces unintended consequences. Averch and Johnson (1962) argue that certain regulation of electric utilities provides utilities the incentive to purchase an inefficiently large amount of capital. Another possible and related unintended consequence of ...
Optimal response to a transitory demographic shock in Social Security financing.
Jan 01, 2009; ... The authors consider a transitory demographic shock that affects negatively the financing of retirement pensions--that is, workers either would have to pay more or retirees would receive less. In contrast to the existing literature, the authors endogenously determine optimal policies ...
Changing the rules: state mortgage foreclosure moratoria during the great depression.
Nov 01, 2008; ... Many U.S. states imposed temporary moratoria on farm and nonfarm residential mortgage foreclosures during the Great Depression. This article describes the conditions that led some states to impose these moratoria and other mortgage relief during the Depression and discusses the economic ...
Mortgage innovation, mortgage choice, and housing decisions.
Nov 01, 2008; ... This paper examines some of the more recent mortgage products now available to borrowers. The authors describe how these products differ across important characteristics, such as the down payment requirement, repayment structure, and amortization schedule. The paper also presents a model ...
Real interest rate persistence: evidence and implications.(Report)
Nov 01, 2008; ... The real interest rate plays a central role in many important financial and macroeconomic models, including the consumption-based asset pricing model, neoclassical growth model, and models of the monetary transmission mechanism. The authors selectively survey the empirical literature that ...
Drug prices under the medicare card program.
Nov 01, 2008; ... In early 2004, the U.S. government initiated the Medicare Drug Discount Card Program (MDDCP), which allowed card subscribers to obtain discounts on prescription drugs. Pharmacy-level prices were posted on the program website weekly with the hope or promoting competition among card sponsors ...
Monetary economic research at the St. Louis fed during Ted Balbach's tenure as research director.(Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)(Statistical data)
Sep 01, 2008; ... Ted Balbach served as research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from 1975 to 1992. This paper lauds his contributions during that time, including the expanded influence of the Review, enhanced databases and data publications, and a visiting scholar program that attracted ...
Oil and the U.S. macroeconomy: an update and a simple forecasting exercise.(Statistical table)
Sep 01, 2008; ... Some analysts and economists recently warned that the U.S. economy faces a much higher risk of recession should the price of oil rise to $100 per barrel or more. In February 2008, spot crude oil prices closed above $100 per barrel for the first time ever, and since then they have climbed ...
Banking crisis solutions old and new.(Northern Rock PLC)
Sep 01, 2008; ... In 2007 Britain experienced its first run on a bank of any macroeconomic significance since 1866. This was not dealt with by the method that had maintained banking stability for so long: letting the bank fail but supplying abundant liquidity to the markets to prevent contagion. In this ...
The credit crunch of 2007-2008: a discussion of the background, market reactions, and policy responses.(Statistical table)
Sep 01, 2008; ... This paper discusses the events surrounding the 2007-08 credit crunch. It highlights the period of exceptional macrostability, the global savings glut, and financial innovation in mortgage-backed securities as the precursors to the crisis. The credit crunch itself occurred when house ...