The economy continues to expand at a moderate pace. Ongoing federal deficit reduction will weigh on the recovery in the near term, but we expect growth to pick up next year as monetary policy remains accommodative and the forces restraining recovery ease somewhat. — John Fernald » Read more in FedViews • May 9 Economic Outlook: Moving in the Right Direction • FRBSF Economic Letter 2013-15 The economy and the labor market have improved substantially since the Federal Reserve
started its current $85 billion monthly asset purchase program last September. However, it will
take further gains to demonstrate that the “substantial improvement” test for ending Fed asset
purchases has been met. The following is adapted from a presentation by the president and
CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco at the Portland Business Journal’s CFO of the
Year Awards Luncheon in Portland, Oregon, on May 16, 2013. Williams • May 20, 2013 District Trends Beige Book • April 17, 2013 Economic activity in the District expanded at a modest pace. Demand for both homes and commercial real estate properties continued to expand on balance. » Summary • 12th District • Full report 12L Economic Trends • May 2013 (pdf, 507kb) |
Improving Fed Transparency Opening the Temple: An Essay by President and CEO John C. Williams Recent FOMC Communications Initiatives 
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. New in Research In the News Fed Discovers that, Yes, QE Impacts the Dollar • by Steve Goldstein, Marketwatch Blog, Wall Street Journal • April 1, 2013 This just in — the dollar reacts to Federal Reserve pronouncements. That’s according to a just published note from the San Francisco Fed. Researchers Reuven Glick and Sylvain Leduc plotted the relationship between quantitative easing policy surprises and the trade-weighted value of the U.S. dollar. They found that the greater the surprise, the more the dollar depreciates. » Read more in "Unconventional Monetary Policy and the Dollar" • Glick • Leduc Five Ways to Reform Social Security Disability Insurance • by Dylan Matthews, Wonkblog, The Washington Post • March 29, 2013 Chana Joffe-Walt's NPR segment on disability insurance has provoked considerable debate as to the program's health and how, if at all, it needs to be changed. So what reform proposals are on the table? In their book, The Declining Work and Welfare of People with Disabilities, Mary Daly and Richard Burkhauser would give employers with low rates of disability insurance use a tax break, and increase taxes on employers who send a lot of workers onto disability. » Read more in "Evaluating Growth in the Supplemental Security Income Program for Disabled Children" • Burkhauser • Daly • Lucking Is China Cooking Its Books? • by Charles Riley, CNN Money • March 26, 2013 Are China's economic statistics accurate? Pose this question to a group of China watchers and you're likely to receive a variety of responses. Now we have an opinion from researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Their verdict? The statistics are pretty good. » Read more in "On the Reliability of Chinese Output Figures" • Fernald • Malkin • Spiegel Trends with Benefits • by Chana Joffe-Walt, This American Life, National Public Radio • March 22, 2013 The number of Americans receiving federal disability payments has nearly doubled over the last 15 years. There are towns and counties around the nation where almost 1/4 of adults are on disability. Planet Money's Chana Joffe-Walt spent 6 months exploring the disability program, including an interview with Mary Daly. » Read more in "Explaining the Rapid Growth in Social Security Disability Insurance Rolls" • Daly • Lucking • Schwabish The Effects of Unconventional and Conventional U.S. Monetary Policy on the Dollar • Working paper 2013-11 We examine the effects of unconventional and conventional monetary policy announcements on the value of the dollar using high-frequency intraday data. Identifying monetary policy surprises from changes in interest rate futures prices in narrow windows around policy announcements, we find that surprise easings in monetary policy since the crisis began have had significant effects on the value of the dollar. We document that these changes are comparable to the effects of conventional policy changes prior to the crisis. Glick • Leduc • April 2013 Upcoming Seminars TBA
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