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Working Paper
Are Manufacturing Jobs Still Good Jobs? An Exploration of the Manufacturing Wage Premium
This paper explores the factors behind differences in wages between manufacturing and other sectors. Using data from the Current Population Survey, we find that the manufacturing wage premium--the additional pay a manufacturing worker earns relative to a comparable nonmanufacturing worker--disappeared in recent years and that the erosion of the premium has primarily affected workers employed in production occupations, who experienced a wage decline of 2.5 percentage points since the 1990s relative to other workers in production occupations. While the demographic composition and other worker ...
Labor Economy at Greater Risk in Texas than U.S. During COVID-19 Crisis
The coronavirus crisis could more adversely affect the Texas economy than the U.S. economy due to the state’s relatively large share of at-risk jobs, a review of data suggests.
Working Paper
The Surprisingly Swift Decline of U.S. Manufacturing Employment
This paper finds a link between the sharp drop in U.S. manufacturing employment beginning in 2001 and a change in U.S. trade policy that eliminated potential tariff increases on Chinese imports. Industries where the threat of tariff hikes declines the most experience more severe employment losses along with larger increases in the value of imports from China and the number of firms engaged in China-U.S. trade. These results are robust to other potential explanations of the employment loss, and we show that the U.S. employment trends differ from those in the E.U., where there was no change in ...
Mounting Signs Point to a Texas Economic Slowdown
The most recent jobs report showed state employment was flat in August. The unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.1 percent (from 4.0 percent in July), and labor force and wage growth also eased.
Diverse, Resilient Houston Looking at Moving Beyond Traditional Energy Base
Dallas Fed President Lorie K. Logan met with Houston business and community leaders earlier this month in the first of 12 stops on her 360° in 365 Listening Tour.Di
Working Paper
Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey: survey methodology and performance
The Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey (TMOS) is a monthly survey of area manufacturers conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. TMOS indexes provide timely information on manufacturing activity in Texas, which is useful for understanding broader changes in regional economic conditions. This paper describes the survey methodology and analyzes the explanatory and predictive power of TMOS indexes with regard to other measures of state economic activity. Regression analysis shows that several TMOS indexes successfully explain monthly changes in Texas employment and quarterly changes in ...
Working Paper
Investment Responses to Trade Liberalization : Evidence from U.S. Industries and Establishments
This paper examines the effect of a change in U.S. trade policy on the domestic investment of U.S. manufacturers. Using a difference-in-differences identification strategy, we find that industries more exposed to reductions in import tariff uncertainty exhibit relative declines in investment after the change in trade policy. Within industries, we find that this relationship is concentrated among establishments with low initial levels of labor productivity, capital intensity and skill intensity. For plants with high initial levels of skill intensity, we find that increased exposure is ...
Discussion Paper
A Crooked Road to a Creative Economy
The Crooked Road trail celebrates the cultural history of Appalachian music and arts. In 2015, it was estimated to bring $6.4 million in tourism spending to the region annually and continues to promote growth in southwest Virginia’s tourism industry today.
Investment in Mexico Falls Despite Rise in Remittances
Mexico has grown more dependent on foreign direct investment and remittances after total investment declined sharply for a fourth consecutive year in 2020.
Journal Article
Introducing the Philadelphia Fed nonmanufacturing survey
To assess the health of the economy, it sometimes helps to look beyond the numbers and listen directly to business managers. That is why the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and a handful of other regional Reserve Banks and private firms such as the Institute for Supply Management conduct a variety of monthly surveys of business activity. Such qualitative surveys offer the advantage of providing timelier insight into economic activity prior to the official monthly employment and quarterly gross domestic product data releases as well as insight into regional and local trends. And now ...