At the New York Fed, our mission is to make the U.S. economy stronger and the financial system more stable for all segments of society. We do this by executing monetary policy, providing financial services, supervising banks and conducting research and providing expertise on issues that impact the nation and communities we serve.
Inventory investment plays a central role in business cycle fluctuations. This post examines whether inventory investment amplifies or dampens economic fluctuations following a tightening in financial conditions. We find evidence supporting an amplification mechanism. This analysis suggests that inventory accumulation will be a drag on economic activity this year but provide a boost in 2020.
A $20 billion rise in student loan balances in the third quarter of this year contributed to a $92 billion increase in total household debt, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit from the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data. This post explores racial disparities in student loan outcomes using information about the borrowers’ locations, grouping zip codes based upon which racial group constitutes the majority of an area’s residents.
Over the past two decades, the growth of shadow banking has transformed the way the U.S. banking system funds corporations. In this post, we describe how this growth has affected both the term loan and credit line businesses, and how the changes have resulted in a reduction in the liquidity insurance provided to firms.
The New York Fed recently co-sponsored the fifth annual Conference on the U.S. Treasury Market with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve Board, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. This year’s agenda covered a variety of topics, including issues related to LIBOR transition, data transparency and reporting requirements, and market structure and risk.
Global trade policy uncertainty has increased significantly, largely because of a changing tariff regime between the United States and China. In this blog post, we argue that trade policy can have a significant effect on firms’ organization of supply chains. When the probability of a trade war rises, firms become less likely to form long-term, just-in-time relationships with foreign suppliers, which may lead to higher costs and welfare losses for consumers. Our research shows that even in the absence of actual tariff changes, an increased likelihood of a trade war can significantly distort U.S. imports.
Thomas Eisenbach, Kyra Frye, and Helene Hall take a look at what is driving the strong co-movement between aggregate payments sent over Fedwire and total aggregate reserves following the financial crisis.
Kosar, Smith, and van der Klaauw introduce the SCE Public Policy Survey and highlight some of its features.
Haoyang Liu and Christopher Palmer examine how perceptions of past housing prices may shape predictions for the future, and investigate whether these tendencies shape participation in the housing market.
Health is an integral part of well-being. The United Nations Human Development Index uses life expectancy (together with GDP per capita and literacy) as one of three key indicators of human welfare across the world. In this post, I discuss the state of life expectancy inequality in the United States and examine some of the underlying factors in its evolution over the past several decades.
Fleming, Johansson, Keane, and Meyer present a synopsis of work from the Liberty Street Economics archive on a 2014 flash episode when U.S. Treasury yields plunged and rebounded for no obvious reason.
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