{"title":"Technology Transfer and Regional Trade Agreements","authors":"Ana Maria Santacreu, J. LaBelle","doi":"10.20955/es.2021.23","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.20955/es.2021.23","url":null,"abstract":"The growing importance of intellectual property rights in regional trade agreements has been associated with increased technology transfer.","PeriodicalId":51713,"journal":{"name":"Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84670248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Women without a College Degree, Especially Minority Mothers, Face a Steeper Road to Recovery","authors":"Didem Tuzemen","doi":"10.18651/er/v106n3tuzemen","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18651/er/v106n3tuzemen","url":null,"abstract":"5 Didem Tüzemen is a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Samantha Shampine, a research associate at the bank, helped prepare the article. This article is on the bank’s website at www.KansasCityFed.org The labor force participation of prime-age individuals (age 25 to 54) in the United States declined dramatically at the onset of the pandemic as temporary shutdown orders and social distancing measures to fight the COVID-19 outbreak caused substantial job losses and limited job search activities. In February 2020, 83.1 percent of prime-age individuals participated in the labor force, meaning they were either working or actively looking for work. By April 2020, this rate had fallen to 79.8 percent, a decline of roughly 4 million people. Although some prime-age individuals have returned to the labor force since then, as of June 2021, the prime-age labor force participation rate remains well below its pre-pandemic level. Prime-age individuals are in their most productive working years, and a persistent decline in their labor force participation has important implications for the future of the labor market and economic growth. However, understanding the decline requires detailed analysis; aggregate statistics on labor force participation may mask differences in labor market outcomes by sex, educational attainment, and race and ethnicity. Identifying these differences is crucial to both","PeriodicalId":51713,"journal":{"name":"Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81446530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cash or Debit Cards? Payment Acceptance Costs for Merchants","authors":"Fumiko Hayashi","doi":"10.18651/er/v106n3hayashi","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18651/er/v106n3hayashi","url":null,"abstract":"5 Fumiko Hayashi is a research and policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. This article is on the bank’s website at www.KansasCityFed.org Over the last two decades, public authorities around the world have intervened in the payment card industry to address growing interchange fees charged to merchants for processing card transactions. The goal of these interventions has been to give merchants and their customers some relief from high fees, which are typically set by the card network (such as Visa or Mastercard) and received by the card issuer (such as a bank). The Reserve Bank of Australia, for example, started regulating interchange fees for credit cards in 2003 and debit cards in 2006. After a series of agreements between the European Commission and Visa and Mastercard reduced interchange fees during the 2000s, European Union legislators approved the European Commission’s proposal to cap interchange fees for credit and debit cards in 2015. In the United States, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System implemented a cap on interchange fees for debit cards issued by large banks in 2011 (though credit card interchange fees have not been regulated). Despite this regulation, some U.S. merchants still consider debit card interchange fees too high. Interchange fees impose costs on merchants, but this does not necessarily mean accepting cards is more costly than accepting cash. Cash transactions impose costs as well: merchants may pay bank fees to","PeriodicalId":51713,"journal":{"name":"Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review","volume":"85 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83484686","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fintech, Racial Equity, and an Inclusive Financial System","authors":"","doi":"10.24148/cdir2021-02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24148/cdir2021-02","url":null,"abstract":"This issue of the Community Development Innovation Review examines the promise and pitfalls of financial technology, or fintech, for fostering racial equity and greater financial inclusion. Edited in partnership with the SF Fed’s Fintech Team and Aspen Institute’s Financial Security Program, this issue brings together a broad set of voices from people working in various roles—including in technology, community development, economic inclusion, regulation, and investment—to contextualize gaps in the financial system and consider ways to address them. The authors examine dimensions of the fintech ecosystem that promote and those that hinder equity and inclusion. The issue also highlights partnership and design approaches to deepen impact. Fintech leaders are well-positioned to enable greater access to the financial system and are also faced with the potential for deepening existing inequities. This issue provides a starting place to explore this tension.","PeriodicalId":51713,"journal":{"name":"Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81275459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Hanauer, Brent Lytle, Chris Summers, Stephanie Ziadeh
{"title":"Community Banks' Ongoing Role in the U.S. Economy","authors":"M. Hanauer, Brent Lytle, Chris Summers, Stephanie Ziadeh","doi":"10.18651/er/v106n2hanauerlytlesummersziadeh","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18651/er/v106n2hanauerlytlesummersziadeh","url":null,"abstract":"In recent decades, both the number of community banks and their share of U.S. banking assets have steadily declined, raising questions about the future of community banking. In addition to competitive pressures from larger banking organizations, community banks face growing challenges from broader economic consolidation, changing demographics, and rapidly advancing financial technologies. Matt Hanauer, Brent Lytle, Chris Summers, and Stephanie Ziadeh explore the role of community banks in the U.S. economy, the challenges they face, and their outlook for the future. They find that despite their declining market share, community banks remain crucial financial services providers and are the predominant providers of banking services in rural communities across the country. In addition, they find that community banks are outsized providers of credit to agricultural and commercial borrowers, including during periods of economic stress. The authors argue that community banks will continue to play an important role in their local communities and the broader economy.","PeriodicalId":51713,"journal":{"name":"Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review","volume":"294 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83438204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Puzzlingly Divergent Trends in Household Wealth and Business Formation","authors":"Justin Barnette, Andrew Glover","doi":"10.18651/ER/V106N2BARNETTEGLOVER","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18651/ER/V106N2BARNETTEGLOVER","url":null,"abstract":"The rate of new business formation has declined sharply in recent decades, raising concerns among economists about job and productivity growth. This observed decline in business formation is likely to be juxtaposed to changes in characteristics such as household wealth that affect households’ propensity to become entrepreneurs. Economic theories of business formation suggest that wealthier households are more likely to start a business because wealth allows them to more easily reach a profitable scale. Justin Barnette and Andrew Glover use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1989 to 2015 to estimate the effect of wealth on the probability of a household starting a business while taking other observable characteristics into account. They find a puzzling divergence: business formation declined over the past three decades even as household wealth increased. However, they find no evidence that the relationship between business formation and household wealth has changed in the cross section. Instead, changes in other characteristics—most notably, previous entrepreneurial experience—likely explain the decline. Their findings suggest a dynamic relationship between wealth accumulation, past experience, and new business formation that deserves further study.","PeriodicalId":51713,"journal":{"name":"Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review","volume":"105 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75954253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ana Maria Santacreu, Fernando Leibovici, Jesselynn LaBelle
{"title":"Global Value Chains and U.S. Economic Activity During Covid-19","authors":"Ana Maria Santacreu, Fernando Leibovici, Jesselynn LaBelle","doi":"10.20955/r.103.271-88","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.20955/r.103.271-88","url":null,"abstract":"We investigate the role of global value chains in the declines of manufacturing employment and output in the U.S. during COVID-19. Specifically, we identify the role of global value chains by exploiting heterogeneity across industries in cross-country sourcing patterns and its interaction with exogenous cross-country variation in the containment policies introduced to combat the virus. We find that global value chains played a significant role in the decline of output and employment across U.S. manufactures. Moreover, we find a modest impact of diversifying or renationalizing global value chains in mitigating the economy's exposure to foreign shocks.","PeriodicalId":51713,"journal":{"name":"Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75228391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Did the Federal Reserve Anchor Inflation Expectations Too Low?","authors":"Brent H. Bundick, A. L. Smith","doi":"10.18651/er/v106n1bundicksmith","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18651/er/v106n1bundicksmith","url":null,"abstract":"In 2012, the Federal Reserve adopted a 2 percent target for inflation to firmly anchor longer-term inflation expectations. Since then, inflation has averaged about 1.4 percent. Modern theories suggest that inflation should eventually gravitate toward measures of longer-run inflation expectations. The tendency for inflation to reside below the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent inflation target over much of the past decade raises questions of whether longer-run inflation expectations are anchored—and, if so, whether they are anchored below 2 percent. Brent Bundick and A. Lee Smith argue that the Federal Reserve’s communication of a numerical objective for inflation better anchored longer-term inflation expectations; however, Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) projections for longer-run inflation from 2009–11 may have anchored them below 2 percent. The authors present evidence that the 2009 addition of longer-run inflation to the FOMC’s Summary of Economic Projections (SEP), together with the eventual adoption of a longer-run 2 percent inflation objective in 2012, made investors’ inflation expectations more stable. At the same time, SEP projections for longer-run inflation from 2009 to 2011 generally resided below 2 percent, which may have led inflation expectations to anchor below 2 percent.","PeriodicalId":51713,"journal":{"name":"Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78772203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Evolving Link between Oil Prices and U.S. Consumer Spending","authors":"Nida Çakır Melek, Robert J. Vigfusson","doi":"10.18651/er/v106n1cakirmelekvigfusson","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18651/er/v106n1cakirmelekvigfusson","url":null,"abstract":"5 Nida Çakır Melek is a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Robert J. Vigfusson is an assistant director in the Division of International Finance at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Colton Tousey, an assistant economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, helped prepare the charts. This article is on the bank’s website at www.KansasCityFed.org Oil prices have fluctuated widely since the 1970s. Starting around 2000, oil prices began a steady rise, reaching historic highs in the mid-2000s. Then, in the wake of the 2007–09 global financial crisis, oil prices plummeted, before rebounding sharply in the early stages of the subsequent economic recovery. This rebound in prices helped fuel investment in the U.S. oil sector and propelled the fracking revolution. As the fracking revolution took hold and U.S. oil production ramped up, prices again fell sharply in 2014. Although oil prices began to recover again in recent years, they took yet another sharp hit in the economic shutdown precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Historically, consumers have tended to increase spending on nonoil goods and services when oil prices decline and cut back on such spending when oil prices rise. This response is due, in part, to the United States being a major oil importer and the demand for oil being relatively price-inelastic—that is, slow to adjust to price changes (see, for example, Hamilton 2009; Edelstein and Kilian 2009; Yellen 2011; Ramey 2016). However, this relationship may have changed more","PeriodicalId":51713,"journal":{"name":"Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81978230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Forecasting Low Frequency Macroeconomic Events with High Frequency Data","authors":"Michael T. Owyang, A. Galvão","doi":"10.20955/wp.2020.028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.20955/wp.2020.028","url":null,"abstract":"High-frequency financial and economic activity indicators are usually time aggregated before forecasts of low-frequency macroeconomic events, such as recessions, are computed. We propose a mixed-frequency modelling alternative that delivers high-frequency probability forecasts (including their confidence bands) for these low-frequency events. The new approach is compared with single-frequency alternatives using loss functions adequate to rare event forecasting. We provide evidence that: (i) weekly-sampled spread improves over monthly-sampled to predict NBER recessions, (ii) the predictive content of the spread and the Chicago Fed Financial Condition Index (NFCI) is supplementary to economic activity for one-year-ahead forecasts of contractions, and (iii) a weekly activity index can date the 2020 business cycle peak two months in advance using a mixed-frequency filtering.","PeriodicalId":51713,"journal":{"name":"Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82140726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}