A nation of spendthrifts? An analysis of trends in personal and gross saving

The steep drop in the U.S. personal saving rate over the last decade has fueled speculation that Americans are spending recklessly. But alternative measures of personal saving show that households are actually setting aside a larger share of their resources than the official figures suggest. In addition, government saving has risen markedly, leading to an increase in overall domestic saving that has helped finance a surge in U.S. investment.Saving and investment ; Finance, Personal

Fiscal policy in an era of surpluses: economic and financial implications - summary of observations and recommendations

Fiscal policy ; Budget

The impact of the current defense build-down

For the third time since the end of World War II, the United States is engaged in a long-term defense build-down. This article provides a broad macroeconomic overview of the current build-down relative to the build-downs following the Korean War and the Vietnam War. In addition, the authors examine regional and industrial impacts of cuts in defense spending.Defense contracts ; War - Economic aspects ; Employment (Economic theory)

Core CPI: excluding food, energy ... and used cars?

Although used car prices represent only a small portion of the consumer price index, their extreme volatility has had a major impact on the measured inflation rate. To explain this relationship, the authors describe how used cars are treated in the CPI and explore what might cause the wide swings in used car prices.Automobile industry and trade ; Consumer price indexes

Are home prices the next "bubble"?

The strong rise in home prices since the mid-1990s has raised concerns over a possible bubble in the housing market and the effect of a sharp price decline on the U.S. economy. This article assesses two measures frequently cited to support a bubble-the rising price-to-income ratio and the declining rent-to-price ratio-and finds the measures to be flawed and the conclusions drawn from them unpersuasive. In particular, the measures do not fully account for the effects of declining nominal mortgage interest rates and fail to use appropriate home price indexes. The authors also estimate a structural model of the housing market and find that aggregate prices are not inconsistent with long-run demand fundamentals. Accordingly, they conclude that market fundamentals are strong enough to explain the recent path of home prices and that no bubble exists. Nevertheless, weakening fundamentals could have an impact on home values on the east and west coasts, where the new housing supply appears to be relatively inelastic. However, prices in these regions have typically been volatile, and previous declines have not had a sizable negative effect on the overall economy.Housing - Prices ; Housing - Finance ; Business cycles

Monetary policy transmission to residential investment

Paper for a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York entitled Financial Innovation and Monetary TransmissionMonetary policy ; Housing - Finance ; Mortgages

Acquired dyslexia as conversion disorder: Identification and management

Acquired dyslexia in previously literate adults is rarely ascribed to a psychological cause. A psychological explanation for acquired dyslexia attributes the disorder to a physiologic conversion reaction causing loss or distortion of reading abilities for subconscious personal gain. The only cases with such a diagnosis consist of just two adolescents with developmental dyslexia. No cases of acquired dyslexia in an adult due to psychological reasons have been reported. This presentation offers the first evidence for such a case. The assessment and rehabilitation of an adult with acquired dyslexia is described that supports conversion disorder as a cause of acquired dyslexia

Housing outcomes: an assessment of long-term trends

This paper was presented at the conference "Unequal incomes, unequal outcomes? Economic inequality and measures of well-being" as part of session 2, " Affordability of housing for young and poor families." The conference was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on May 7, 1999. The authors examine trends in housing outcomes by income group. Orr and Peach indicate that there has been a substantial improvement in the physical adequacy of the housing stock over the past few decades, particularly for households in the lowest income quintile. Neighborhood quality for all income groups has also improved, although sharp differences in quality continue to exist across the groups. In one important respect, however, lower income households are worse off than before - housing costs now absorb a larger share of their income.Housing ; Housing - Finance

How does slack influence inflation?

Economists have long studied the relationship between resource utilization and inflation. Theory suggests that when firms use labor and capital very intensively, production costs tend to rise and firms have more scope to pass those cost increases along in the form of higher product prices. In contrast, when that level of intensity is relatively low—that is, when the economy is operating with slack—production costs tend to rise more slowly (or even fall) and firms have less scope for raising prices. Empirical evidence, however, has varied concerning the exact nature of the relationship between resource utilization and inflation. In this study, the authors reexamine this relationship by evaluating the presence of “threshold effects.” They find that the level of intensity of resource utilization must be below or above certain critical values before it can help to forecast movements in inflation.Inflation (Finance) ; Labor productivity ; Phillips curve

The historical and recent behavior of goods and services inflation

Since the late 1990s, the combination of relatively high services inflation and declining goods prices has produced a record-level gap in these inflation rates. Some commentators argue that if the gap between services and goods inflation continues to expand in this manner, the outcome will be either faster overall inflation or deflation. This article examines the relationship between these divergent inflation rates from 1967 to 2002. The authors find that while the level of each inflation rate is subject to permanent shifts, the gap between services inflation and goods inflation over time remains stable. Moreover, when the gap is above its long-run value, as it currently is, equilibrium is restored through a rise in goods inflation and a slowing of services inflation. Their results suggest that concerns over an imminent marked acceleration or dramatic slowing in inflation may be unwarranted.Inflation (Finance) ; Service industries