This is not your father's recession ... or is it?

The current declines in employment and income are consistent with what happened in previous recessions going back to 1969. Unique this time are the major drop in home prices and the proactive response by policymakers.Recessions

The current recession: how bad is it?

In a recession, the severity of the decline is just as relevant as the duration of the recession.Recessions

Federal Reserve assets: understanding the pieces of the pie

One way to examine the composition of assets on the Fed's balance sheet is to group them according to the objectives of the programs used to acquire them.Government securities ; Fiscal policy

Predicting consumption: a lesson in real-time data

Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index ; Consumption (Economics)

Convergence in the United States: a tale of migration and urbanization

We use non-parametric distribution dynamics techniques to reassess the convergence of per capita personal income (PCPI) across U.S. states and across metropolitan and nonmetropolitan portions of states for the period 1969-2005. The long-run distribution of PCPI is bimodal for both states and metro/nonmetro portions. Further- more, the high income mode of the distribution across metro and nonmetro portions corresponds to the single mode of the long-run distribution across metro portions only. These results (polarization or club-convergence) are reversed when weighting by population. The long run distributions across people are consistent with convergence. Migration and urbanization are the forces behind convergence.Migration, Internal ; Income distribution

Convergence across states and people

Income distribution

Economic misfortunes have caused many to reassess their finances, triggering sharp reversals in borrowing and spending habits

Households - Economic aspects ; Consumer behavior

Vacancies and unemployment

Expansions are usually associated with plentiful vacancies and a low number of unemployed workers. During recessions the unemployment pool swells while employers seek to fill fewer job openings.Unemployment ; Recessions ; Labor market

New monetary policy tools?

Monetary policy

A closer look: assistance programs in the wake of the crisis

An unprecedented amount of aid was extended by the Treasury, Fed and FDIC to companies, agencies and individuals. This aid was necessary and, in many cases, will return a profit to taxpayers.Financial crises ; Intermediation (Finance) ; Business failures