Search Results
Conference Paper
How the commercial real estate boom undid the banks
Journal Article
The evolution of monetary policy and the Federal Reserve System over the past thirty years: an overview
Over the past thirty years, the activities of the Federal Reserve System have undergone major change. Public interest and confidence in monetary policy have grown immensely. Low inflation has emerged, if not as the primary objective of monetary policy, at least as a more central focus than it was thirty years ago. The Federal Reserve System has also undergone changes. Reserve Banks now charge for many of their financial services, rather than providing them free to banks that are System members. Placed in competition with commercial banks in providing financial services, Reserve Banks have ...
Conference Paper
Changing financial markets and community development: an overview
Discussion Paper
Small businesses in Springfield, Massachusetts: a look at Latino entrepreneurship
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has been collaborating with community leaders in Springfield, Massachusetts, on exploring revitalization strategies. Latino entrepreneurship is playing an important and increasing role in Springfield's economic development?providing new jobs and services and maintaining storefronts that might otherwise be vacant. An analyst in the Fed's community development unit, Ana Patricia Muoz, has recently completed a discussion paper on this topic, "Small Business in Springfield, Massachusetts: A Look at Latino Entrepreneurship." Among the implications: if ...
Journal Article
New England approaches the 1990s
Conference Paper
The merger boom: proceedings of a conference held October 1987
Journal Article
Mortgage lending in Boston: a response to the critics
Three years ago, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston released an examination of racial patterns in mortgage denial rates in the Boston area. The study was motivated by newly available data on mortgage applications, showing that black and Hispanic applicants were two to three times as likely to be turned down for mortgages as white applicants. The study gathered all the variables thought to be missing from the HMDA analysis, such as the applicants' debt burdens and credit histories, to see whether these economic factors explained the racial difference in denial rates. Although the additional ...
Journal Article
Inflation, asset markets, and economic stabilization: lessons from Asia
In 1980's, a new convention emerged in the economics profession - that central banks' primary, even sole, responsibility should be controlling consumer price inflation. By the 1990's, this view was gaining credibility in policy circles, and various countries mandated that their central banks make inflation their primary focus (generally with and escape clause in the event of a severe economic shock). Here in the United States, this orthodoxy never gained official status; rather, the U.S. policy goal remains promoting stable long-term growth using a variety of theoretical approaches. ; The ...