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Journal Article
Investor expectations and fundamentals: disappointment ahead?
The average annual return of the S&P 500 since 1994 has exceeded 25 percent. Confidence is high and investors are looking forward to continued above-average returns. The authors of this Economic Commentary attempt to reconcile investors' expectations with a decline in the equity premium, using a standard approach to stock-price valuation.
Journal Article
Productivity measures and the \\"new economy\\"
The U.S. economy's recent extraordinary performance has led some to claim that trend output growth is accelerating to a much higher rate than any we have experienced in a quarter century; they also maintain that the signs of productivity's acceleration have been masked by measurement problems. The authors, however, find scant evidence to support such claims.
Journal Article
Why the optimism?
In spite of the recent recession, hopes for the New Economy have been little daunted. Surprisingly robust productivity growth during the recent downturn provides compelling new evidence that something truly fundamental is going on. This Commentary argues that advances in information technology, and their diffusion through the economy, justify our optimism. Higher productivity growth is not an ephemeral phenomenon but one likely to persist for some time into the future, perhaps even accelerating further.
Journal Article
An option for anticipating Fed action
Options contracts on federal funds futures, a new financial instrument introduced earlier this year, can be analyzed to gauge public expectations of future Fed actions. The real bonus is that they can detect differences of opinion when markets see more than two possible outcomes for an FOMC meeting as well as the likelihood associated with each.
Journal Article
Public pensions under stress
The financial crisis has made it all too clear that regulators failed to see into the dark corners of the financial system. With that in mind, the Federal Reserve Banks of Cleveland and Atlanta have formed a Financial Monitoring Team to study pension funds and municipal finance with an eye toward implications for the wider economy and financial system. What concerns should we have? In this article and other articles from this spring issue of Forefront, we explain where risks could be building and how reforms might help forestall their impact on the broader economy and financial system.
Journal Article
Accelerating money growth: is M2 telling us something?
A look at the recent acceleration in M2, examining evidence that its velocity has stabilized around a new trend, analyzing the usefulness of money in monetary policy deliberations, and highlighting some of the pitfalls of ignoring money growth.
Journal Article
Where is all the U.S. currency hiding?
An examination of the U.S. dollar's growing popularity abroad and a discussion of how the rising currency demand could affect U.S. economic policy.
Journal Article
The recent ascent in stock prices: how exuberant are you?
Working Paper
Recovering market expectations of FOMC rate changes with options on federal funds futures
This paper demonstrates how options on federal funds futures, which began trading in March 2003, can be used to recover the implied probability density function (PDF) for future Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) interest rate outcomes. The discrete nature of the choices made by the FOMC allows for a very straightforward recovery of the implied PDF using ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation. This simple recovery method stands in contrast to the relatively complicated PDF recovery techniques developed for options written on assets such as equities, foreign exchange, or commodity futures ...
Journal Article
Why is the dividend yield so low?
The dividend yield on stocks has dropped sharply over the last decade. Is its drop a consequence of irrational exuberance? This Commentary assesses alternative explanations for the diminished dividend yield.