Serving the public with innovative research and analysis

Recent Publications

Economic Letter

Posted December 7, 2015
John C. Williams

The U.S. economy is on the cusp of full health, supported by highly accommodative monetary policy in recent years. The labor market is nearing maximum employment. Inflation remains too low, but measures of its underlying trend suggest that it is not far from the Fed’s 2% target. With real progress toward these goals, the conversation has turned to normalizing policy. The following is adapted from a presentation by the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco to community leaders in Portland, OR, on December 2.

View more FRBSF Economic Letters >

View more FRBSF Economic Letters

Working Paper

Posted December 4, 2015
Robert G. Valletta, Leila Bengali, and Catherine van der List

We examine the determinants of involuntary part-time employment, focusing on variation associated with the business cycle and variation attributable to more persistent structural features of the labor market. Our theoretical framework distinguishes between workers’ decision to seek part-time work and employer demand for part-time work hours, emphasizing demand and supply determinants of involuntary part-time work such as workplace technology, labor costs, and workforce demographics. We conduct regression analyses using state-level panel and individual data for the years 2003-2014. The results show that the combination of cyclical variation and the influence of market-level factors can explain virtually all of the variation in the aggregate incidence of involuntary part-time employment since the Great Recession.

View More Working Papers >

View More Working Papers

Indicators and Data

PCE Inflation Dispersion

The personal consumption expenditure price index (PCEPI) is one measure of U.S. inflation. The PCEPI measures the percentage change in prices of goods and services purchased by consumers throughout the economy.

Tech Pulse

The Tech Pulse Index is an index of coincident indicators of activity in the U.S. information technology sector. It can be interpreted as a summary statistic that tracks the health of the tech sector in a timely manner.

Total Factor Productivity

This site presents a real-time, quarterly series on total factor productivity (TFP) for the U.S. business sector, adjusted for variations in factor utilization - labor effort and capital's workweek.

Wage Rigidity Meter

The Wage Rigidity Meter offers a closer examination of the annual wage changes of U.S. workers that have not changed jobs over the year.