Just Released: The New York Fed Staff Forecast, May 2015
Today, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) is hosting the spring meeting of its Economic Advisory Panel (EAP). As has become custom at this meeting, FRBNY staff are presenting their forecast for U.S. growth, inflation, and unemployment through the end of 2016. Following the presentation, members of the EAP, which consists of leading economists in academia and the private sector, are asked to discuss the staff forecast. Such feedback helps the staff evaluate the assumptions and reasoning underlying the forecast and the key risks to it. Subjecting the staff forecast to periodic evaluation is also important because it informs the staff’s discussions with New York Fed President William Dudley about economic conditions. In that same spirit, we are sharing a short summary of the staff forecast in this post. For more detail, please see the material from the EAP meeting on our website.
The Class of 2015 Might Have a Little Better Luck Finding a Good Job
With the college graduation season well under way, a new crop of freshly minted graduates is entering the job market and many bright young minds are hoping to land a good first job. It’s no wonder if they are approaching the job hunt with some trepidation. For a number of years now, recent college graduates have been struggling to find good jobs. However, the labor market for college graduates is improving. After declining for nearly two years, openings for jobs requiring a college degree have picked up since last summer. Not only has this increase in the demand for educated workers continued to push down the unemployment rate for recent graduates, but it has also finally started to help reduce underemployment, though the underemployment rate remains high. While successfully navigating the job market will likely remain a challenge, it appears that finding a good job has become just a little bit easier for the class of 2015.
Crisis Chronicles: The Panic of 1825 and the Most Fantastic Financial Swindle of All Time
Centered in London, the banking panic of 1825 has been called the first modern financial crisis, the first Latin American crisis, and the first emerging market crisis. And while the panic displayed many of the key elements of past crises we have covered—fluctuations in money growth, an investment bubble, a stock market crash, and bank runs—this crisis had its own twists, including a Bank of England that hesitated before stepping in as lender of last resort. But it is perhaps best known for an infamous bond market swindle surrounding an entirely made-up Central American principality. In this edition of Crisis Chronicles, we explore the Panic of 1825 and visit the mythical nation of Poyais.
The Long‑Term Unemployed and the Wages of New Hires
This is the third in a series of blog posts on the topic of measuring labor market slack. In this post, we assess the relationships between short- and long-term unemployment and wages by comparing the differences in states’ experiences over the business cycle.
How Attached to the Labor Market Are the Long‑Term Unemployed?
In this second post in our series, we analyze the labor market outcomes of long-term unemployed workers to assess their employability and labor force attachment.
Measuring Labor Market Slack: Are the Long‑Term Unemployed Different?
There has been some debate in the Liberty Street Economics blog and in other outlets, such as Krueger, Cramer, and Cho (2014) and Gordon (2013), about whether the short-term unemployment rate is a better measure of slack than the overall unemployment rate.
Forecasting Inflation with Fundamentals . . . It’s Hard!
Jan Groen Controlling inflation is at the core of monetary policymaking, and central bankers would like to have access to reliable inflation forecasts to assess their progress in achieving this goal. Producing accurate inflation forecasts, however, turns out not to be a trivial exercise. This posts reviews the key challenges in inflation forecasting and discusses […]
Crisis Chronicles: The Crisis of 1816, the Year without a Summer, and Sunspot Equilibria
In 1815, England emerged victorious after what had been nearly a quarter century of war with France.
Do Unemployment Benefits Expirations Help Explain the Surge in Job Openings?
Job openings are arguably one of the most important indicators of recovery in the labor market, as they reflect employers’ willingness to hire.
Are the Job Prospects of Recent College Graduates Improving?
The promise of finding a good job upon graduation has always been an important consideration when weighing the value of a college degree.