
Serving the public with innovative research and analysis
Research Spotlight
Second Annual Workshop on Macroeconomic Implications of Migration: Call for Papers
The Bank of Canada, the Global Migration Center at the University of California, Davis, the Economics Department at ITAM, and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco would like to invite you to submit a paper to the second edition of the workshop on the Macroeconomic Implications of Migration that will take place at the SF Fed on August 25, 2023.
We invite researchers to submit working papers by Friday, April 15, 2023. Read our Call for Papers for more information.
Recent Publications
FedViews
Economic Outlook
Thuy Lan Nguyen, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, stated her views on the current economy and the outlook as of March 9, 2023.
Economic Letter
Forward-Looking Policy in a Real-Time World
Restoring price stability is a key part of the Fed’s mandate, and it is what the American people expect. Achieving it will take time and a broad view of economic conditions. Policymakers have to respond to an economy that is evolving in real time and prepare for what the economy will look like in the future. The following is adapted from remarks by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco to Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies at Princeton University on March 4.
Working Paper
The Canary in the Coal Decline: Appalachian Household Finance and the Transition from Fossil Fuels
The energy transition away from fossil fuels presents significant transition risks for communities historically built around the fossil fuel industry. This paper uses the decline in the Appalachian coal industry between 2011 and 2018 to understand how individuals are harmed by a reduction in local fossil fuel extraction activity. We use individual-level credit data and exogenous variation in coal demand from the electricity sector to identify how the coal mining industry’s decline affected the finances of Appalachian households. We find that the decline in demand for coal caused broad-based negative impacts, decreasing credit scores and increasing credit utilization, delinquencies, amounts in third party collections, bankruptcy rates, and the number of individuals with subprime status. These effects were broad based and cannot be explained solely by individuals who lost coal mining jobs. Individuals with the lowest pre-period credit scores were more likely to end up in financial distress and experienced a greater deterioration in credit scores. Quantile regressions show that the drop in credit scores from the coal decline was most pronounced between the 30th and 50th percentiles of the credit score distribution. Our results provide evidence that people living in fossil fuel extraction regions are likely to experience declines in financial well-being from the energy transition even if they do not directly work in the affected industry.
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).
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.
Proxy Funds Rate
The Proxy Funds Rate uses a broad set of financial market indicators to assess the stance of monetary policy. The proxy rate can be interpreted as indicating what federal funds rate would typically be associated with prevailing financial market conditions if the federal funds rate were the only monetary policy tool being used.
SF Fed Data Explorer
The SF Fed Data Explorer is an interactive tool that gives users the ability to explore, analyze, and download detailed data for various groups of people in the U.S. labor market. The data come from responses to the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS).
Supply- and Demand-Driven PCE Inflation
Supply- versus Demand-Driven PCE Inflation determines the monthly contributions to both headline and core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation from supply-driven versus demand-driven components.
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.
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.