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Working Paper
Does the Beige Book move financial markets?
About two weeks prior to each FOMC meeting, the Federal Reserve releases a description of economic activity in a document called the Beige Book. The authors examine whether the descriptive content of the Beige Book affects asset prices. The results indicate that more positive Beige Book reports on economic growth are associated with increases in interest rates, particularly long-term rates, even after controlling for other macroeconomic data releases. Stronger Beige Book reports are positively associated with changes in equity prices during expansions but negatively during recessions.
Report
The term structure of announcement effects
We analyze high-frequency responses of U.S. Treasury yields across the maturity spectrum to macroeconomic announcements. We find that surprises in the announcements evoke the sharpest reactions from the intermediate maturities, thus forming striking hump-shaped curves of announcement effects. We then fit an affine-yield model to the yield changes using the announcement surprises as GMM instruments. The model estimates imply that the announcements elicit larger shocks to an expected future target interest rate than to the current short-term interest rate and that different types of ...
Journal Article
The comparative growth performance of the U.S. economy in the postwar period
Productivity growth is the single most important determinant of improvements in a country's living standards over time. Accordingly, the U.S. productivity slowdown of the past two decades has caused great concern and sparked much debate. ; In this article, Mark A. Wynne argues that the problems associated with the U.S. slowdown may be overstated. Wynne shows that the rates of productivity growth experienced in the immediate postwar period were extraordinary in comparison with historical standards. Thus, some slowdown was probably unavoidable. U.S. productivity performance in comparison with ...
Journal Article
A Texas revival
Journal Article
The U.S. economy in 1989: an uncertain outlook
The Federal Reserve's monetary policy in 1989 will likely focus on countering emerging inflationary pressures. As these pressures are contained, the good economic performance shown by the economy in recent years is likely to continue.
Journal Article
With tailwinds blowing, the district economy sails on
Unemployment's low, output's high, and the Eighth District's economic waters appear to be iceberg-free.
Journal Article
Manufacturers cautiously optimistic for second half of 2003
Journal Article
National outlook