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Discussion Paper
Fifth District State Business Cycles
To model national and state business cycles, this post first explores fluctuations of payroll employment around its long-run trend, comparing the correlation of the state-level employment fluctuations to the national series. Second, it explores how a popular rule of thumb recession indicator, the Sahm Recession Rule, performs when applied to state-level data compared to national data during the past four economic downturns. Third, this analysis not only provides us with insight into states' historical relationships with the U.S. business cycle, but it also reveals how they might fare in ...
Discussion Paper
Firm Price-Setting Behavior Amid Elevated Price Growth: Evidence From Our Surveys
very month, the Richmond Fed surveys firms across the Fifth District to understand how economic and business conditions are changing. As a part of this survey, we ask firms to report the 12-month percentage change in the prices they receive from customers for their goods or services. Additionally, we ask firms to provide their expectations for how prices will change over the next 12 months.As inflation has picked up in the U.S. economy, we have paid particular attention to the price measures from our surveys. Not surprisingly, firms in our district have experienced higher price growth since ...
Discussion Paper
The Role of Manufacturing in the Rural Fifth District
A manufacturing job became the pathway to a middle-class lifestyle for many American families in the decades immediately following World War II. Although the industry has suffered large employment losses since the 1970s, it remains a critical source of employment in rural America.This article explores historical trends in manufacturing employment in the United States and the Fifth District. Since the 1990s, despite a sharper decline in manufacturing employment in the district than in the United States, manufacturing in rural North Carolina, rural South Carolina, and rural Virginia composes a ...
Journal Article
Regional Spotlight: Making Ends Meet
How does the local cost of living affect a household’s standard of living?
Discussion Paper
The Impact of the Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapse on Fifth District Firms
The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 26 killed six people, severed a major interstate highway, and temporarily closed the Port of Baltimore. This Macro Minute blog post last month discussed potential regional economic effects as well as several reasons to be hopeful for the port's long-term recovery upon reopening.Between March 28 and April 17 in our April manufacturing and service sector surveys, to assess its immediate economic impact, we asked Fifth District firms to report if and how the bridge collapse will impact their businesses. Overall, 30 ...
Discussion Paper
State Labor Market Update: January 2024 Data Release
This article covers the latest state-level employment data release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, written by our team of regional economists. The summaries for each state are attributed accordingly below so that any quotes drawn from this article can be properly credited. Data used for this article are at the time of writing and are subject to future revisions by the BLS.
Journal Article
Exploring the Economic Effects of the Opioid Epidemic
Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died from opioid overdoses in recent years. What has this epidemic done to the economy? And why is the crisis so much worse right here in the Third District?
Journal Article
District Digest: Measuring Social Capital Across the Fifth District
How cliquey is your community? How often do people from different income groups in your area befriend one another? Do your neighbors volunteer their time to charitable causes? Social scientists have long studied social capital — the strength and value of social networks within communities — as well as its effects on economic, health, and political outcomes. Political scientists have linked higher civic engagement with the strength of democratic institutions, while economists have studied the role that friendships across socioeconomic statuses might have in fostering economic mobility.
Discussion Paper
Boeing South Carolina's Economic Impact: Ten Years After Opening
There is a long history of U.S. state and local governments using subsidies to attract employers and stimulate economic activity, but research suggests that these industrial recruitment policies can have high costs per job generated. In a recent research article published in Economic Development Quarterly, I evaluate the economic impact of South Carolina's $1 billion deal to recruit Boeing's 787 Dreamliner assembly plant to North Charleston, which opened in 2011. The research investigates how the Boeing plant impacted South Carolina's burgeoning aerospace industry, the Charleston Metropolitan ...