September 16, 2020

If you’ve visited a retailer lately, you may have encountered the coin “shortage” that has led some stores to prohibit cash because they can’t make change.

Retailers are devising various schemes to acquire coins or make change in novel ways. A convenience store chain is offering a free beverage or sandwich in exchange for change, according to media reports.

September 15, 2020

Today’s world is a vast laboratory for people who study economic uncertainty, including a group at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

For the Bank’s researchers, the pandemic-induced crisis has supercharged every one of their time-tested measurements of uncertainty as they attempt to separate signal from noise in disagreements among economic forecasters, measures drawn from media reports and social media, and surveys of business executives, In fact, muddled economic circumstances provide ample opportunity for Atlanta Fed economist Brent Meyer and colleagues to gain important new insights from the Bank’s Survey of Business Uncertainty (SBU) about where individual firms and, in turn, the broader economy, may be heading. Crucially, the six-year-old SBU has been around long enough to produce rich data, Meyer said.

He and his cohorts have analyzed enough responses to conclude that firms’ reported expectations about revenues and hiring...

Inflation expectations: Firms' year-ahead inflation expectations have remained relatively unchanged at 1.6 percent, on average. Current economic environment: Sales levels and profit margins "compared to normal" continued to improve over the month, though they remain at historically low levels. Year-over-year unit cost growth decreased significantly to 1.3 percent, on average. Quarterly question: Firms' long-term (per year, over the next five to 10 years) inflation expectations went relatively unchanged at 2.4 percent, on average. Special question: Firms assessed how different aspects of their business were affected by COVID-19. They then indicated what challenges they expect moving forward due to COVID-19 as well as their biggest expected challenge. A breakdown of the results can be found in the special question section below. 

Raphael Bostic President and Chief Executive Officer Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Conference on Racial Justice and Finance (virtual) Atlanta Fed and Princeton University's Bendheim Center for Finance

September 18, 2020

The growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) is a key indicator of economic activity, but the official estimate is released with a delay. Our GDPNow forecasting model provides a "nowcast" of the official estimate prior to its release by estimating GDP growth using a methodology similar to the one used by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

GDPNow is not an official forecast of the Atlanta Fed. Rather, it is best viewed as a running estimate of real GDP growth based on available economic data for the current measured quarter. There are no subjective adjustments made to GDPNow—the estimate is based solely on the mathematical results of the model. In particular, it does not capture the impact of COVID-19 and social mobility beyond their impact on GDP source data and relevant economic reports that have already been released. It does not anticipate their impact on forthcoming economic reports beyond the standard internal...

The growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) is a key indicator of economic activity, but the official estimate is released with a delay. Our GDPNow forecasting model provides a "nowcast" of the official estimate prior to its release by estimating GDP growth using a methodology similar to the one used by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

GDPNow is not an official forecast of the Atlanta Fed. Rather, it is best viewed as a running estimate of real GDP growth based on available economic data for the current measured quarter. There are no subjective adjustments made to GDPNow—the estimate is based solely on the mathematical results of the model. In particular, it does not capture the impact of COVID-19 and social mobility beyond their impact on GDP source data and relevant economic reports that have already been released. It does not anticipate their impact on forthcoming economic reports beyond the standard internal...