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Look for our next post on September 4.

June 26, 2019

How Large Are Default Spillovers in the U.S. Financial System?

Fernando M. Duarte, Collin Jones, and Francisco Ruela

Second of two posts

How Large Are Default Spillovers in the U.S. Financial System?

When a financial firm suffers sufficiently high losses, it might default on its counterparties, who may in turn become unable to pay their own creditors, and so on. This “domino” or “cascade” effect can quickly propagate through the financial system, creating undesirable spillovers and unnecessary defaults. In this post, we use the framework that we discussed in “Assessing Contagion Risk in a Financial Network,” the first part of this two-part series, to answer the question: How vulnerable is the U.S. financial system to default spillovers?

Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Banks , Crisis , Dealers , Financial Institutions , Financial Intermediation , Systemic Risk | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

June 24, 2019

Just Released: New Regional Employment Data Now Available

Richard Deitz and Jonathan Hastings

Regional employment data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) are a critically important tool used to track and assess local economic conditions on a timely basis. However, the primary data used for this purpose are monthly survey-based estimates that are revised once per year, and these revisions can sometimes be substantial and surprising. As a result, initial readings of these data can lead to conclusions about employment trends that may later change. It is possible to anticipate these revisions in advance of their release using a second publicly available data set released by the BLS. Like some of our colleagues at other Reserve Banks (the Dallas Fed and St. Louis Fed, in particular), the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is now performing an “early benchmark” of initial monthly employment releases throughout the year and making these benchmarked data available to the public on a monthly basis. Our early benchmarked estimates tend to more closely track revised data than the initial releases do, and can help policymakers and the public better monitor regional economic conditions on a timely basis.

Posted by Blog Author at 10:00 AM in Labor Market , Regional Analysis | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Assessing Contagion Risk in a Financial Network

Fernando M. Duarte, Collin Jones, and Francisco Ruela

First of two posts

Assessing Contagion Risk in a Financial Network

In compiling a list of key takeaways of the 2008 financial crisis, surely the dangers of counterparty risk would be near the top. During the crisis, speculation on which financial institution would be next to default on its obligations to creditors, and which one would come after that, dominated news cycles. Since then, there has been an explosion in research trying to understand and quantify the default spillovers that can arise through counterparty risk. This is the first of two posts delving into the analysis of financial network contagion through this spillover channel. Here we introduce a framework that is useful for thinking about default cascades, originally developed by Eisenberg and Noe.

Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Banks , Crisis , Financial Institutions , Financial Intermediation , Financial Markets , Fire Sale , Systemic Risk | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

June 21, 2019

The New York Fed DSGE Model Forecast—June 2019

Sushant Acharya, Michael Cai, Marco Del Negro, Ethan Matlin, and Reca Sarfati

This post presents an update of the economic forecasts generated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We describe very briefly our forecast and its change since January 2019. As usual, we wish to remind our readers that the DSGE model forecast is not an official New York Fed forecast, but only an input to the Research staff’s overall forecasting process. For more information about the model and variables discussed here, see our DSGE model Q & A.

Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in DSGE , Forecasting , Macroecon | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

June 05, 2019

Despite Rising Costs, College Is Still a Good Investment

Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz

Second of two posts

Despite Rising Costs, College Is Still a Good Investment

In our last post, we showed that the cost of college has increased sharply in recent years due to the rising opportunity cost of attending school and the steady rise in tuition. This steep increase in the cost of college has once again raised questions about whether college is “worth it.” In this post, we weigh the economic benefits of a bachelor’s degree against the costs to estimate the return to college, providing an update to our 2014 study. We find that the average rate of return for a bachelor’s degree has edged down slightly in recent years due to rising costs, but remains high at around 14 percent, easily surpassing the threshold for a good investment. Thus, while the rising cost of college appears to have eroded the value of a bachelor’s degree somewhat, college remains a good investment for most people.

Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Education , Human Capital | Permalink | Comments ( 10 )

June 03, 2019

The Cost of College Continues to Climb

Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz

First of two posts

College is much more expensive than it used to be. Tuition for a bachelor’s degree has more than tripled from an (inflation-adjusted) average of about $5,000 per year in the 1970s to around $18,000 today. For many parents and prospective students, this high and rising tuition has raised concerns about whether getting a college degree is still worth it—a question we addressed in a 2014 study. In this post, we update that study, estimating the cost of college in terms of both out-of-pocket expenses, like tuition, and opportunity costs, the wages one gives up to attend school. We find that the cost of college has increased sharply over the past several years, though tuition increases are not the primary driver. Rather, opportunity costs have increased substantially as the wages of those without a college degree have climbed due to a strong labor market. In a follow-up post, we will consider whether college is still “worth it” by weighing the benefits relative to the costs to estimate the return to a college degree.

Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Education , Labor Economics , Labor Market | Permalink | Comments ( 5 )

May 29, 2019

Is There Too Much Business Debt?

Anna Kovner and Brandon Zborowski

By many measures nonfinancial corporate debt has been increasing as a share of GDP and assets since 2010. As the May Federal Reserve Financial Stability Report explained, high business debt can be a financial stability risk because heavily indebted corporations may need to cut back spending more sharply when shocks occur. Further, when businesses cannot repay their loans, financial institutions and investors incur losses. In this post, we review measures of corporate leverage in the United States. Although corporate debt has soared, concerns about debt growth are mitigated in part by higher corporate cash flows.

Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Banks , Corporate Finance , Credit , Financial Intermediation | Permalink | Comments ( 10 )

May 23, 2019

New China Tariffs Increase Costs to U.S. Households

Mary Amiti, Stephen J. Redding, and David E. Weinstein

Tariffs on $200 billion of U.S. imports from China subject to earlier 10 percent levies increased to 25 percent beginning May 10, 2019, after a breakdown in trade negotiations. In this post, we consider the cost of these higher tariffs to the typical U.S. household.

Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Household Finance , International Economics , Tariffs | Permalink | Comments ( 9 )

May 22, 2019

Just Released: Press Briefing on the Evolution and Future of Homeownership

Olivier Armantier, Andrew F. Haughwout, Gizem Kosar, Donghoon Lee, Joelle Scally, and Wilbert van der Klaauw

The New York Fed today held a press briefing on homeownership in the United States, in connection with its release of the 2019 Survey of Consumer Expectations Housing Survey. The briefing opened with remarks from New York Fed President John Williams, who provided commentary on the macroeconomic outlook and summarized the prospects for homeownership. He noted that the labor market remains very strong and that there seems to be little evidence of inflationary pressures, meaning that the economy is on a healthy growth path.

Posted by Blog Author at 11:01 AM in Foreclosure , Household Finance , Housing , Mortgages | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

May 20, 2019

How Has Germany’s Economy Been Affected by the Recent Surge in Immigration?

Matthew Higgins and Thomas Klitgaard

Germany emerged as a leading destination for immigration around 2011, as the country’s labor market improved while unemployment climbed elsewhere in the European Union. A second wave began in 2015, with refugees from the Middle East adding to already heavy inflows from Eastern Europe. The demographic consequences of the surge in immigration include a renewed rise in Germany’s population and the stabilization of the country’s median age. The macroeconomic consequences are hard to measure but look promising, since per capita income growth has held up and unemployment has declined. Data on labor-market outcomes specific to immigrants are similarly favorable through 2015, but reveal challenges in how well the economy is adjusting to the second immigration wave.

Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Labor Market , Macroecon | Permalink | Comments ( 3 )

About the Blog

Liberty Street Economics features insight and analysis from New York Fed economists working at the intersection of research and policy. Launched in 2011, the blog takes its name from the Bank’s headquarters at 33 Liberty Street in Manhattan’s Financial District.

The editors are Michael Fleming, Andrew Haughwout, Thomas Klitgaard, and Asani Sarkar, all economists in the Bank’s Research Group.

The views expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the New York Fed or the Federal Reserve System.

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