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Research Spotlight
Work of Five SF Fed Economists Featured in Recent JME
The latest supplement of the Journal of Monetary Economics recently published four articles from SF Fed staff economists in its massive 1,118-page issue. Check out these articles and other related research by our featured economists.
“Endogenous Forecast Switching Near the Zero Lower Bound” by Kevin J. Lansing, pp. 153-169.
“Unemployment Crises” by Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau and Lu Zhang, pp. 335-353.
“The Phillips Multiplier” by Regis Barnichon and Geert Mesters, pp. 689-705.
“Optimal Capital Account Liberalization in China” by Zheng Liu, Mark M. Spiegel, and Jingyi Zhang, pp. 1,041-1,061.
Recent Publications
FedViews
Economic Outlook
Huiyu Li, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, stated her views on the current economy and the outlook as of March 4, 2021.
Economic Letter
Lessons from History, Policy for Today
Today’s economic challenges are different from the past, and it’s important to learn from history to achieve a better economic future for everyone. As the economy recovers from the effects of COVID-19, the Fed’s new policy framework retains vigilance against inflation while committing to not pull back the reins on the economy in response to a strong labor market. The following is adapted from a virtual webinar by the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco to the Economic Club of New York on March 2.
Working Paper
The Impact of COVID on Potential Output
The level of potential output is likely to be subdued post-COVID relative to its previous estimates. Most clearly, capital input and full-employment labor will both be lower than they previously were. Quantitatively, however, these effects appear relatively modest. In the long run, labor scarring could lead to lower levels of employment, but the slow pre-recession pace of GDP growth is unlikely to be substantially affected.
Indicators and Data
China Cyclical Activity Tracker
The China Cyclical Activity Tracker, China CAT, is an alternative measure of China’s economic growth based on research in Fernald, Hsu, and Spiegel (2019).
COVID-19 Forecasts by County
COVID-19 Forecasts by County projects future infection growth rates for various horizons using near real-time data on social distancing behavior, weather, vaccinations, and confirmed COVID-19 cases per capita. The forecasts are based on the estimated relationship between transmission factors and subsequent infection growth over the pandemic to date.
Cyclical and Acyclical Core PCE Inflation
Cyclical and Acyclical Core PCE Inflation divides components of core personal consumption expenditures according to whether they move in tandem with economic cycles or are independent of the state of the overall economy.
Daily News Sentiment Index
The Daily News Sentiment Index is a high frequency measure of U.S. economic sentiment based on lexical analysis of economics-related news articles.
Inflation Sensitivity to COVID-19
Inflation Sensitivity to COVID-19 divides core personal consumption expenditures inflation into components that are sensitive and insensitive to the economic disruptions caused by the pandemic.
PCE Inflation Dispersion
PCE Inflation Dispersion statistics present a more detailed summary of the personal consumption expenditure price index (PCEPI), a measure of U.S. inflation. Included are measures of the distribution of price changes across categories and diffusion indices.
Tech Pulse
The Tech Pulse data updates have been discontinued.
Total Factor Productivity
Total Factor Productivity (TFP) presents a real-time, quarterly data series for the U.S. business sector, adjusted for variations in factor utilization—labor effort and capital’s workweek.
Treasury Yield Premiums
The Treasury yield premium model decomposes nominal bond yields of various maturities into three components: expectations of the average future short-term interest rate, a term premium, and a model residual.
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.
Weather-Adjusted Employment Change
This page provides estimates of weather-adjusted employment change in the United States for the past six months. The estimates are aggregated from county-level estimates of weather’s employment effects, which were derived from a county-level analysis of the short-run effects of unusual weather on employment growth.
