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Journal Article
Competition & opportunity
Discussion Paper
Oil and the macroeconomy in a changing world: a conference summary
Analysis of oil-price movements is once again an important feature of economic policy discussions. To provide some background for this analysis, this paper summarizes a conference on the oil market held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in June 2010. Four cross-cutting themes emerged from this symposium, which included scientific experts, market participants, business leaders, academics, and policymakers. First, the decline in real oil prices that followed the 1970s' oil shocks is unlikely to be repeated today, because there are fewer ways in which oil-importing countries can reduce oil ...
Conference Paper
Why the interest in reform?
Journal Article
Righting the scales: the search for balance in health care
Journal Article
Recent developments in U.S. energy markets: a background note
In its October 1999 World Economic Outlook, the IMF assumed that oil prices would be $18 per barrel in 2000. In reality, oil prices will probably average closer to $30 than to $20 a barrel this year. As oil prices have continued to rise above expectation, analysts have scrambled to find explanations. This note outlines some of the developments that have led to persistently high oil prices over the past two years. The author compares the current situation with that prevailing at the time of previous oil shocks and outlines some of the difficulties entailed in measuring the impact of sharp oil ...
Conference Paper
Seismic shifts: the economic impact of demographic change: an overview
Most economic developments are hard to predict. Considerable uncertainty surrounds forecasts for output growth, inflation, and unemployment a year from now, for instance. But demographic developments are different in this respect. Although demographic surprises abound, the major trends build slowly, and the broad contours of medium-term outcomes become discernible well in advance.
Journal Article
Intra-firm trade: an update
Journal Article
NAFTA: fast forward?
Journal Article
New England's links to the world economy
"Openness" to international trade and investment encourages technology transfer and productivity growth. It may also provide a degree of stability in the face of national and regional business cycles. To assess New Englands relative openness, this article surveys New Englands links with the world economy: its trade in goods and services, its banking ties, its inbound and (to the extent possible) its outbound foreign direct investments. ; The author finds evidence that New Englands 1987-89 export growth has been slow, and that inbound foreign investment recently has played a below-average ...
Briefing
Inflation targeting: central bank practice overseas
This policy brief, which is based on an internal memo, summarizes the institutional and operational features observed in the 27 countries that have gained experience with inflation targeting (IT). It finds considerable convergence in many IT practices across countries over the past 10 to 15 years but much variation in policymakers? choices concerning such key issues as how they treat the borders of the target range. On the whole, most IT banks have chosen to practice inflation targeting in a more flexible and, thus, resilient fashion than many analysts once feared?seemingly without much loss ...