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Journal Article
New measures of economic growth and productivity in upstate New York
Newly available measures of GDP at the metropolitan area level now afford a more comprehensive view of regional economic activity. An analysis of upstate New York's economic performance using these measures points to below-average output growth between 2001 and 2006 along with productivity levels and productivity growth below the U.S. average. The region's performance overall, however, is somewhat better than that of many manufacturing-oriented metro areas in the Great Lakes region.
Discussion Paper
Staying In College Longer Than Four Years Costs More Than You Might Think
In yesterday’s blog post and in our recent article in the New York Fed’s Current Issues series, we showed that the economic benefits of a bachelor’s degree still outweigh the costs, on average, even in today’s difficult labor market. Like others who assess the value of a bachelor’s degree, we base our estimates on the assumption that a student takes four years to finish the degree. But it is not uncommon for people to take longer than that. In fact, recent data indicate that among those who complete a bachelor’s degree within six years, only about two-thirds finish in four years ...
Discussion Paper
How Severe Was the Credit Cycle in the New York-Northern New Jersey Region?
U.S. households accumulated record-high levels of debt in the 2000s, and then began a process of deleveraging following the Great Recession and financial crisis. In some parts of the country, the rise and fall in household indebtedness was quite a bit sharper than in others. In this post, we highlight some of our research examining the magnitude of the recent credit cycle, and focus on how significant it?s been in New York State and northern New Jersey. Compared with the nation as a whole, we find that the region experienced a relatively mild credit cycle, although pockets of elevated ...
Discussion Paper
The (Modest) Rebound in Manufacturing Jobs
The United States lost 5.7 million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010, reducing the nation?s manufacturing employment base by nearly a third. These job losses and their causes have been well documented in the popular press and in academic circles. Less well recognized is the modest yet significant rebound in manufacturing jobs that has been underway for several years. Indeed, employment in the manufacturing industry began to stabilize in 2010, and the nation has added nearly 1 million jobs since then. Although modest in magnitude, this uptick in manufacturing jobs represents the longest ...
Discussion Paper
Women Have Been Hit Hard by the Loss of Routine Jobs, Too
Technological change and globalization have caused a massive transformation in the U.S. economy. While creating new opportunities for many workers, these forces have eliminated millions of good-paying jobs, particularly routine jobs in the manufacturing sector. Indeed, a great deal of attention has focused on the consequences of the loss of blue-collar production jobs for prime‑age men. What is often overlooked, however, is that women have also been hit hard by the loss of routine jobs, particularly administrative support jobs—a type of routine work that has historically been largely ...
Report
Underemployment in the early careers of college graduates following the Great Recession
Though labor market conditions steadily improved following the Great Recession, underemployment among recent college graduates continued to climb, reaching highs not seen since the early 1990s. In this paper, we take a closer look at the jobs held by underemployed college graduates in the early stages of their careers during the first few years after the Great Recession. Contrary to popular perception, we show that relatively few recent graduates were working in low-skilled service jobs, and that many of the underemployed worked in fairly well paid non-college jobs requiring some degree of ...
Discussion Paper
How Colleges and Universities Can Help Their Local Economies
Policymakers are increasingly viewing colleges and universities as important engines of growth for their local areas. In addition to having direct economic impacts, these institutions help to raise the skills of an area’s workforce (its local “human capital”), and they do this in two ways. First, by educating potential workers, they increase the supply of human capital in a region. Perhaps less obviously, these schools can also raise a region’s demand for human capital by helping local businesses create jobs for skilled workers. In this post, we draw on our recent academic research ...
Discussion Paper
Women’s Labor Force Participation Was Rising to Record Highs—Until the Pandemic Hit
Women’s labor force participation grew precipitously in the latter half of the 20th century, but by around the year 2000, that progress had stalled. In fact, the labor force participation rate for prime-age women (those aged 25 to 54) fell four percentage points between 2000 and 2015, breaking a decades-long trend. However, as the labor market gained traction in the aftermath of the Great Recession, more women were drawn into the labor force. In less than five years, between 2015 and early 2020, women’s labor force participation had recovered nearly all of the ground lost over the prior ...
Journal Article
The role of colleges and universities in building local human capital
Colleges and universities can contribute to the economic success of a region by deepening the skills and knowledge?or human capital?of its residents. Producing graduates who join the region?s educated workforce is one way these institutions increase human capital levels. In addition, the knowledge and technologies created through research activities at area universities may not only attract new firms to a region but also help existing businesses expand and innovate. These ?spillover effects? can in turn raise the region?s demand for high-skilled workers.
Journal Article
How severe was the credit cycle in the New York-northern New Jersey region?
U.S. households accumulated record-high levels of debt in the 2000s and then began a process of deleveraging following the Great Recession and financial crisis. However, the magnitude of these swings in the use of credit varied considerably within the United States. An analysis of trends in household debt over the past decade shows that compared with the nation as a whole, the New York?northern New Jersey region experienced a relatively mild "credit cycle," although pockets of financial stress exist.