Working Paper
Can studies of application denials and mortgage defaults uncover taste-based discrimination?
Tootell, Geoffrey M. B. (1996)
Several articles in the popular press have asserted that a simple comparison of average mortgage default rates for white and minority applicants is necessary and sufficient to uncover discrimination in mortgage lending. The fallacy of this assertion has been examined in Peterson (1981), Tootell (1993), and Yinger (1993). These papers show that a failure to account for the financial characteristics of each application or loan makes a simple comparison of average rates meaningless. However, recent empirical work on discrimination in mortgage lending has examined both application denial and ...
Working Papers , Paper 96-10

Journal Article
Regional economic conditions and the FOMC votes of district presidents
Tootell, Geoffrey M. B. (1991-03)
It is often argued that the institutional structure of the Federal Reserve System influences the formulation and attainment of national monetary policy goals. District Bank presidents do play a major role in the formulation of monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York always has one of twelve votes at the policy-making Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings, and four of the remaining eleven votes rotate among the other Reserve Bank presidents. ; This article tests whether regional economic performance excessively influences the votes of District Bank presidents. The article ...
New England Economic Review , Issue Mar , Pages 3-16

Speech
Some unpleasant stabilization arithmetic: remarks at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's 62nd Economic Conference, \\"What are the Consequences of Long Spells of Low Interest Rates?\\", Boston, Massachusetts, September 8, 2018
Tootell, Geoffrey M. B.; Rosengren, Eric S.; Peek, Joe (2018-09-08)
These slides represent the combined thoughts of President Rosengren and his co-presenters, Joe Peek and Geoffrey M. B. Tootell.
Speech

Journal Article
Purchasing power parity within the United States
Tootell, Geoffrey M. B. (1992-07)
Economics has many articles of faith. One of the most dearly held is Purchasing Power Parity, which posits that the price of the same good in different regions should be equivalent when no barriers to arbitrage exist. Because Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is an important assumption in much of international economic theory, this article examines empirical evidence testing this proposition. ; Instead of analyzing international data, this study analyzes PPP between regions of the United States. By comparing regions within a country, it eliminates many of the hypotheses offered to explain the ...
New England Economic Review , Issue Jul , Pages 15-24

Working Paper
Discrimination, redlining, and private mortgage insurance
Tootell, Geoffrey M. B. (1995)
The existence of discrimination and/or redlining in mortgage lending has been debated intensively for years. Traditionally, the lender's role in credit availability has been scrutinized. Yet other institutions, specifically mortgage insurers, often help determine whether a mortgage is granted; if the behavior of the mortgage insurers is not accounted for, their actions could be attributed to the lenders. This paper examines the determinants of the private mortgage insurance decision. Specifically, the roles of the applicant's race and of the racial characteristics of the neighborhood in which ...
Working Papers , Paper 95-10

Working Paper
Empirical estimates of changing inflation dynamics
Tootell, Geoffrey M. B.; Olivei, Giovanni P.; Fuhrer, Jeffrey C. (2009)
This paper provides an array of empirical evidence bearing on potentially important changes in the dynamics of U.S. inflation. We examine the overall performance of Phillips curves relative to some well-known benchmarks, the efficiency with which the Federal Reserve's Greenbook forecasts of inflation use real activity information, and shifts in the key determinants of the reduced-form "triangle model" of inflation. We develop a structural model-based interpretation of observed reduced-form shifts and conduct a reduced-form assessment of the relationship between core and headline measures of ...
Working Papers , Paper 09-4

Journal Article
Mortgage lending in Boston: a response to the critics
Tootell, Geoffrey M. B.; Browne, Lynn E. (1995-09)
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 ...
New England Economic Review , Issue Sep , Pages 53-78

Journal Article
How humans behave: implications for economics and economic policy
Tootell, Geoffrey M. B.; Kopcke, Richard W.; Little, Jane Sneddon (2004)
Economic policymakers attempt to improve the welfare of their citizens, based on assumptions about how people think, feel, and behave, and on what they view as welfare-improving. Economists usually describe economic agents as fully informed and model them as striving to maximize a set of stable preferences. While these assumptions provide a simple framework for analyzing economic activity, actual human behavior has proved more complex. As a result, economists have started looking to psychologists and others who study human behavior for guidance on the decision-making process, the roles of ...
New England Economic Review

Journal Article
How farsighted is the FOMC?
Tootell, Geoffrey M. B. (1997-01)
The most difficult problem facing monetary policymakers results from the long and variable lags in monetary policy's impact on the economy. The full effect of an interest rate change today is not realized for several quarters, so monetary policymakers must be forward-looking. Yet, it is difficult enough to interpret how the economy is doing now, let alone forecast how it will be performing one year hence. This uncertainty hinders the ability of policymakers to offset future fluctuations with current actions. Even so, the lags leave central bankers no choice but to react to their expectations ...
New England Economic Review , Issue Jan , Pages 49-65

Journal Article
Are district presidents more conservative than board governors?
Tootell, Geoffrey M. B. (1991-09)
It is widely believed that the Federal Open Market Committee policy votes of Federal Reserve Bank presidents are more "conservative" than those of their Board governor counterparts. In both academia and Congress, the suspicion runs deep that the political appointment procedure exercised over Federal Reserve Board governors-nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate-results in monetary policy that is more concerned with output and less concerned with inflation than the policy produced by the more politically independent District Bank presidents. ; This article examines the ...
New England Economic Review , Issue Sep , Pages 3-12