Search Results
Does Spending Slide When COVID-19 Surges?
In this District Data Brief, we show that state-level data suggest that economic implications from the latest wave have been less than those from the fall 2020 wave. While there has been some consumer response to the delta-variant-driven COVID-19 surge, it has been weaker than the response to the fall 2020 COVID-19 surge.
Speech
Perspectives on the U.S. Economic Outlook
My view is that the economy is currently in a good place. Labor markets are strong, inflation is moving to target, and growth is likely to be somewhat above potential. Particularly given the recent cuts in the federal funds rate, and the fact that monetary actions take effect with some lag, I would say that this is a good time to patiently assess the economy. In the short run, I do not see a need for additional policy easing unless there is a material change to the forecast.
Discussion Paper
Did State Reopenings Increase Consumer Spending?
The spread of COVID-19 in the United States has had a profound impact on economic activity. Beginning in March, most states imposed severe restrictions on households and businesses to slow the spread of the virus. This was followed by a gradual loosening of restrictions (“reopening”) starting in April. As the virus has re-emerged, a number of states have taken steps to reverse the reopening of their economies. For example, Texas and Florida closed bars again in June, and Arizona additionally paused operations of gyms and movie theatres. Taken together, these measures raise the question of ...
Speech
Views on the Economy and Monetary Policy: In a Good Place and Ensuring We Reach an Even Better One
Monetary policy is in a good place from which to assess and respond to these risks to the outlook. The current strength in labor market conditions and the strong spending data give us the opportunity to keep the nominal funds rate at its current level while we gather more evidence that inflation truly is on a sustainable and timely path back to 2 percent. This is better than finding ourselves in a situation where we begin easing too soon, undo some of the progress we have made on inflation, potentially destabilize inflation expectations, and then have to reverse course. If the economy evolves ...
Tracking the Economic Impact of the Pandemic Using High-Frequency Data
High-frequency data can provide a quicker snapshot of economic conditions than data that take weeks or months to become available.
Working Paper
We Are All Behavioral, More or Less: Measuring and Using Consumer-Level Behavioral Sufficient Statistics
Can a behavioral sufficient statistic empirically capture cross-consumer variation in behavioral tendencies and help identify whether behavioral biases, taken together, are linked to material consumer welfare losses? Our answer is yes. We construct simple consumer-level behavioral sufficient statistics??B-counts??by eliciting seventeen potential sources of behavioral biases per person, in a nationally representative panel, in two separate rounds nearly three years apart. B-counts aggregate information on behavioral biases within-person. Nearly all consumers exhibit multiple biases, in ...
Speech
Important choices for the Federal Reserve in the years ahead: remarks at Lehman College, Bronx, New York
Remarks at Lehman College, Bronx, New York.
Working Paper
Do Stay-at-Home Orders Cause People to Stay at Home? Effects of Stay-at-Home Orders on Consumer Behavior
We link the county-level rollout of stay-at-home orders to anonymized cell phone records and consumer spending data. We document three patterns. First, stay-at-home orders caused people to stay home: County-level measures of mobility declined 8% by the day after the stay-at-home order went into effect. Second, stay-at-home orders caused large reductions in spending in sectors associated with mobility: small businesses and large retail stores. However, consumers sharply increased spending on food delivery services after orders went into effect. Third, responses to stay-at-home orders were ...
Newsletter
Advertising: Targets, Techniques, and Technology
This article discusses advertising as persuasive communication designed to influence consumer spending and offers tips for critical thinking in the marketplace.
Discussion Paper
Racial and Income Gaps in Consumer Spending following COVID-19
This post is the first in a two-part series that seeks to understand whether consumer spending patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic evolved differentially across counties by race and income. As the pandemic hit and social distancing restrictions were put into place in March 2020, consumer spending plummeted. Subsequently, as social distancing restrictions began to be relaxed later in spring 2020, consumer spending started to rebound. We find that higher-income counties had a considerably steeper decline and a shallower recovery than low-income counties did. The differences by race were also ...