 We expect GDP growth to moderate in the first half of 2012, (but then) ... the recovery should gradually pick up steam. — Eric Swanson » Read more in FedViews • January 12 Why Is Unemployment Duration So Long? • FRBSF Economic Letter 2012-03 During the recent recession, unemployment duration reached levels well above those of past downturns. Duration has continued to rise during the uneven economic recovery that began in mid-2009. Elevated duration reflects such factors as changes in survey measurement, the demographic characteristics of the unemployed, and the availability of extended unemployment benefits. But the key explanation is the severe and persistent weakness in aggregate demand for labor. Valletta • Kuang • January 30, 2012 District Trends Beige Book • January 11, 2012 Economic activity in the Twelfth District continued to grow at a moderate pace. Holiday retail sales were up over last year's season, and upward price pressures remained very modest overall. » Summary • 12th District • Full report 12L Economic Trends • January 2012 (pdf, 509kb) ETC: Economic Trends & Conditions • February 2012 (pdf, 109kb) |
Recent FRBSF research on the crisis
For a complete list, please visit: Crisis & Response New in Research In the News A Quiet Fed Voice Emerges as Force Inside the Temple • taken from The Wall Street Journal, by Jon Hilsenrath • January 9, 2012 "Five years ago, a brainy San Francisco researcher named John Williams co-wrote an academic paper called "Revealing the Secrets of the Temple," in which he argued that the Federal Reserve should be more open about its plans for interest rates. Mr. Williams, now president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, will get what he asked for when Fed officials gather this month." » Read more in "Revealing the Secrets of the Temple" • Rudebusch and Williams A Shrinking Military Budget May Take Neighbors With It • taken from The New York Times, by Binyamin Appelbaum • January 6, 2012 "The crucial benefit is not what defense spending provides but what it prevents, Joshua Aizenman, a professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Reuven Glick, a researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, wrote in a 2006 paper." » Read more in "Military Expenditure, Threats, and Growth" • Aizenman and Glick Europe debt crisis poses risk to U.S. banks: Fed paper • taken from Reuters, by Ann Saphir • December 19, 2011 "... If Europe's debt problems remain contained across the Atlantic, the U.S. economy will likely grow at a 2.9 percent pace this quarter, falling back to 2.4 percent next year and picking up again to 3.1 percent in 2013, wrote Sylvain Leduc, a research adviser at the San Francisco Fed." » Read more in FedViews • Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda- Guide to Dividend Stocks; Hough: Firms that supply boomers with steady dividends will be in high demand. • taken from SmartMoney.com, by Jack Hough • December 13, 2011 "Researchers for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco recently wrote that the historical link between age distribution and stock returns suggests the boomer retirement 'could be a factor holding down equity valuations over the next two decades.'" » Read more in Boomer Retirement: Headwinds for U.S. Equity Markets? • Central Bank Announcements of Asset Purchases and the Impact on Global Financial and Commodity Markets • Working paper 2011-30 We present evidence on the effects of large-scale asset purchases by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England since 2008. We show that announcements about these purchases led to lower long-term interest rates and depreciations of the U.S. dollar and the British pound on announcement days, while commodity prices generally declined despite this more stimulative financial environment. We suggest that LSAP announcements likely involved signaling effects about future growth that led investors to downgrade their U.S. growth forecasts lowering long-term US yields, depreciating the value of the U.S. dollar, and triggering a decline in commodity prices. Moreover, our analysis illustrates the importance of controlling for market expectations when assessing these effects. We find that positive U.S. monetary surprises led to declines in commodity prices, even as long-term interest rates fell and the U.S. dollar depreciated. In contrast, on days of negative U.S. monetary surprises, i.e. when markets evidently believed that monetary policy was less stimulatory than expected, long-term yields, the value of the dollar, and commodity prices all tended to increase. Glick • Leduc • December 2011 Upcoming Seminars Seminar (BBL) Seminar (Finance)
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