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Jel Classification:E2 

Discussion Paper
The Great Moderation, Forecast Uncertainty, and the Great Recession

The Great Recession of 2007-09 was a dramatic macroeconomic event, marked by a severe contraction in economic activity and a significant fall in inflation. These developments surprised many economists, as documented in a recent post on this site. One factor cited for the failure to anticipate the magnitude of the Great Recession was a form of complacency affecting forecasters in the wake of the so-called Great Moderation. In this post, we attempt to quantify the role the Great Moderation played in making the Great Recession appear nearly impossible in the eyes of macroeconomists.
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20120514

Discussion Paper
High Unemployment and Disinflation in the Euro Area Periphery Countries

Economists often model inflation as dependent on inflation expectations and the level of economic slack, with changes in expectations or slack leading to changes in the inflation rate. The global slowdown and the subsequent sovereign debt crisis caused the greatest divergence in unemployment rates among euro area member countries since the monetary union was founded in 1999. The pronounced differences in economic performances of euro area countries since 2008 should have led to significant differences in price behavior. That turned out to be the case, with a strong correlation evident between ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20140714a

Working Paper
Trading down and the business cycle

The authors document two facts: First, during recessions consumers trade down in the quality of the goods and services they consume. Second, the production of low-quality goods is less labor intensive than that of high-quality goods. Therefore, when households trade down, labor demand falls, increasing the severity of recessions. The authors find that the trading-down phenomenon accounts for a substantial fraction of the fall in U.S. employment in the recent recession. They study two business cycle models that embed quality choice and find that the presence of quality choice magnifies the ...
FRB Atlanta CQER Working Paper , Paper 2015-5

Discussion Paper
What If the U.S. Dollar's Global Role Changed?

It isn’t surprising that the dollar is always in the news, given the prominence of the United States in the global economy and how often the dollar is used in transactions around the world (as discussed in a 2010 Current Issues article). But the dollar may not retain this dominance forever. In this post, we consider and catalog the implications for the United States of a potential lessening of the dollar’s primacy in international transactions. The circumstances surrounding such a possibility are important for the effects. As long as U.S. fundamentals remain strong, key consequences could ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20111003

Discussion Paper
The Disconnect between Productivity and Profits in U.S. Oil and Gas Extraction

U.S. oil and gas production boomed during the years leading up to the pandemic. From 2011 to 2019, oil production more than doubled and dry natural gas production rose by more than half. Remarkably, these gains occurred despite lackluster investment spending and hiring. Instead, higher production came largely from productivity gains, via wider adoption of fracking technologies. More recently, production recovered sluggishly from the pandemic downturn despite a quick recovery in prices. Our analysis in this post suggests that slower productivity growth and investors’ demand for higher ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20220817

Discussion Paper
Spending Down Pandemic Savings Is an “Only-in-the-U.S.” Phenomenon

Household saving soared in the United States and other high-income economies during the pandemic, as consumers cut back on spending while government policies supported incomes. More recently, saving behavior has diverged, with the U.S. saving rate dropping below its pre-pandemic average while saving rates elsewhere have remained above their pre-pandemic averages. As a result, U.S. consumers have been spending down the “excess savings” built up during the pandemic while the excess savings abroad remain untapped. This divergent behavior helps explain why U.S. GDP has returned to its ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20231011

Discussion Paper
“Excess Savings” Are Not Excessive

How will the U.S. economy emerge from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic? Will it struggle to return to prior levels of employment and activity, or will it come roaring back as soon as vaccinations are widespread and Americans feel comfortable travelling and eating out? Part of the answer to these questions hinges on what will happen to the large amount of “excess savings” that U.S. households have accumulated since last March. According to most estimates, these savings are around $1.6 trillion and counting. Some economists have expressed the concern that, if a considerable fraction of these ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20210405a

Report
Global Supply Chain Pressures, International Trade, and Inflation

We study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on euro area inflation and how it compares to the experiences of other countries, such as the United States, over the two-year period 2020-21. Our model-based calibration exercises deliver four key results: (1) compositional effects, or the switch from services to goods consumption, are amplified through global input-output linkages, affecting both trade and inflation; (2) inflation can be higher under sector-specific labor shortages relative to a scenario with no such supply shocks; (3) foreign shocks and global supply chain bottlenecks played an ...
Staff Reports , Paper 1024

Discussion Paper
Will the U.S. Dollar Continue to Dominate World Trade?

There are around 180 currencies in the world, but only a very small number of them play an outsized role in international trade, finance, and central bank foreign exchange reserves. In the modern era, the U.S. dollar has a dominant international presence, followed to a lesser extent by the euro and a handful of other currencies. Although the use of specific currencies is remarkably stable over time, with the status of dominant currencies remaining unchanged over decades, there have been decisive shifts in the international monetary system over long horizons. For example, the British pound ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20220621

Journal Article
Inflation in 1972: A Cautionary Tale

The path of inflation over the past two years looks strikingly similar to the path observed during the 1970s,when the Federal Open Market Committee shifted its focus away from fighting inflation before pricepressures were fully under control. Although policymakers in both the 1970s and today have facedextraordinary challenges, future perceptions of current policy will likely be defined primarily by theoutcome of the Committee’s attempts to curb inflation, rather than the circumstances surrounding it.
Economic Bulletin , Issue July 1, 2022 , Pages 4

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