Search Results
Journal Article
Banking, In and Out of the Shadows
Highlighted Research of "Optimal Liquidity Policy With Shadow Banking." Borys Grochulski and Yuzhe Zhang. Economic Theory, September 2018
Briefing
Lifespan Inequality and Social Security Reform
What does lifespan inequality mean for Social Security reform? Using a life-cycle model in which the rich tend to outlive the poor, the researchers analyze how various reforms affect the trade-off between distributing lifetime Social Security benefits more equally and encouraging society's most productive members to work longer. They find that social welfare is maximized when benefits are independent of lifetime earnings, the payroll tax cap remains near its current level, and benefits are made less dependent on the age at which they are initially claimed.
Journal Article
Federal Reserve: Artificial Intelligence and Bank Supervision
Artificial intelligence has come a long way since English mathematician, logician, and cryptographer Alan Turing's seminal 1950 essay, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," which explored the idea of building computers capable of imitating human thought. In 1997, almost 50 years after Turing's essay, AI posted a historic breakthrough when the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue won a chess match against reigning world champion Garry Kasparov. Since then, AI's capabilities have improved rapidly, largely through advances in machine learning (ML), especially in ML models that use digital neural ...
Journal Article
The Many Lives of Federal Job Training
Federal job training programs have long enjoyed bipartisan support. Yet their emphasis has varied greatly across the years. At times, they have been advocated primarily as a means of helping workers displaced by automation or international trade. At other times, the focus has been on creating opportunities for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. More recently, they have gained attention as a possible remedy for a perceived "skills mismatch" that many observers see reflected in record high job vacancy rates.
Journal Article
Features: Virginia's Data Centers and Economic Development
Data centers are essential to cloud computing and its ability to give users remote access to data, applications, and computing power over the internet. Yet they typically possess few of the ethereal qualities evoked by the term "cloud." With high concentrations in Northern Virginia's Fairfax and Loudoun counties, data centers are often housed in nondescript buildings whose stark forms resemble massive rectangular cubes. The buildings' interiors are packed with rows and rows of computer servers, vast quantities of cables and switches, and the considerable electrical power and HVAC hardware ...
Journal Article
Supply Chain Disruptions, Inflation, and the Fed
Used cars became a hot commodity during the pandemic, with their prices increasing by roughly 50 percent between January 2020 and December 2021. The spike in used car prices was a prominent example of how global supply chain disruptions have contributed to U.S. inflation. It also highlighted the complexity of global supply and demand relationships.
Briefing
Sovereign CDS Dealers as Market Stabilizers
Economists at the Richmond Fed analyze the role of dealer-provided liquidity in sovereign credit default swap markets. Using newly available data from the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, they track the positions held by large dealers during crises in Ukraine, Venezuela, and Argentina. The researchers find that large dealers tended to increase their provision of insurance as risk increased during those episodes — a finding that is consistent with the notion that they tend to act as market stabilizers during times of turmoil.
Journal Article
Protecting coastal communities: managing change
Careless coastal development is threatening a bulwark of New England?s economy and quality of life. The authors offer 30 years of research on techniques for permitting change without doing harm.