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Economic Research

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FedViews

We expect growth to remain moderate, picking up only gradually in the second half of this year and in 2013. The moderate pace reflects continuing obstacles facing the economy.

— John Fernald

» Read more in FedViews May 10

Economic Letter

Fed Asset Buying and Private Borrowing Rates FRBSF Economic Letter 2012-16

Past rounds of large-scale asset purchases by the Federal Reserve have lowered yields not only on the targeted securities, but also on various private borrowing rates. In particular, yields on corporate bonds and primary mortgage rates decreased in response to Fed asset purchase announcements. Notably, however, the link between rates on mortgage-backed securities and actual mortgage rates has weakened in the wake of the financial crisis.

Bauer May 21, 2012

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District Trends

Beige Book April 11, 2012

Economic activity continued to expand at a moderate pace. Despite higher energy prices, overall price pressures for final goods and services remained modest, as did wage gains.

» Summary 12th District Full report

12L Economic Trends April 2012 (pdf, 507kb)

ETC: Economic Trends & Conditions May 2012 (pdf, 109kb)

Banking Supervision & Regulation Publications

Improving Fed Transparency

Opening the Temple: An Essay by President and CEO John C. Williams
2011 FRBSF Annual Report

Recent FOMC Communications Initiatives
February 14, 2012 Glenn Rudebusch

chart

On January 25, the FOMC took two important steps to improve transparency about monetary policy in the U.S.

First, the FOMC provided a statement that outlines its longer-run goals and monetary policy strategy.

Second, the FOMC provided guidance about its expectations for future monetary policy in the form of quantitative projections of the federal funds rate.

» Read more

New in Research

In the News

Screw Your Analysis to the Sticky Point taken from Conscience of a Liberal, by Paul Krugman April 3, 2012

"... a new paper from the San Francisco Fed offers stunning evidence on downward nominal wage rigidity, a topic I’ve written about before."

» Read more in "Why Has Wage Growth Stayed Strong?" Daly, Hobijn, Lucking

Want to add jobs? Subsidize employers - Fed paper taken from Reuters, by Ann Saphir March 19, 2012

"Subsidizing hiring would be the most effective way to boost jobs in the current economy, because subsidizing workers would do little more than increase the number of job seekers, according to research published on Monday by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco."

» Read more in "Job Creation Policies and the Great Recession" Neumark

Another Lost Decade for Stocks? taken from Motley Fool March 8, 2012

"...Last summer, a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco examined the potential impact of baby boomers on the financial markets and came up with a similar conclusion: Earnings multiples for the stock market will continue to contract ..."

» Read more in "Boomer Retirement: Headwinds for U.S. Equity Markets?" Liu and Spiegel

Fed's Williams Says Central Bank Should Keep Applying Stimulus ... taken Savigroup March 9, 2012

"Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams said the Fed should maintain an “extraordinarily supportive policy” to reduce an unemployment rate that will probably exceed 7 percent for years."

» Read more in "The Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy" Williams

Working Papers

» More Working Papers

Roads to Prosperity or Bridges to Nowhere? Theory and Evidence on the Impact of Public Infrastructure Investment Working paper 2012-04

Using a novel data set on highway spending measures, we construct a measure of government highway spending shocks that captures revisions in expectations about future government investment. We find that shocks to federal funding have a positive effect on local GDP both on impact and after 6 to 8 years. We show that an open-economy model of regions in a monetary and fiscal union, featuring productive public capital and time-to-build lags, can explain this qualitative pattern.

Leduc Wilson April 2012

Upcoming Seminars

Seminar (Micro) Seik Kim (U of WA, Portland) May 24

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Seminar (Finance) Katherine Samolyk (CFBP) May 29

Seminar (International, Hale) Mariassunta Giannetti May 30


Upcoming Conferences

TBA

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Research Centers