By Lindsay Jones, Economic Editor

Turning 30 is a big milestone for anyone. It’s not quite as scary as turning 40, or as ponderous as turning 50, but the big 3-0 pretty much means you’re not a kid anymore. You’ve lived a little, you’ve seen a few things—and maybe it’s even time to take stock of where you’ve been.

So it goes for FRED, the signature economic database from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Born on April 18, 1991, FRED is 30 years old. That’s right—FRED is a millennial, and all grown up!

FRED debuted with 30 data series—data whose changes over time are plotted on charts or reflected in spreadsheets. The data tool’s reach now spans the globe, with more than 788,000 data series and 6 million-plus users worldwide. ALFRED, which turns 15 in July, offers vintage, or unrevised, data in much the same way.

The FRED Blog has looked at the speed of Internet adoption in a few countries: the U.S., China, Korea, Germany, and India. Today, we use World Bank data to widen our view and map Internet use rates around the world. Then we connect those rates to countries’ per capita GDPs.

Our first GeoFRED map identifies the number of Internet users per 100 people in each country. In countries colored blue, over 80% of the population uses the Internet: Liechtenstein is at the top, with a ratio of 99.55%. In countries colored red, under 20% of the population uses the Internet: Eritrea is at the bottom, with a ratio of 1.31%.

Most of the research on the economic effects of COVID-19 has focused on financial and labor markets, and fiscal and monetary policy. Fernando Leibovici and Ana Maria Santacreu tackle the less-studied issue of international trade. They show that U.S. imports of medical equipment rose sharply, expanding the U.S. trade deficit and providing a new angle on the old issue of the resilience of self-reliance versus the efficiency of free trade.

FREDcast is an online game managed by the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. To play the game, users enter forecasts for several key economic indicators and are awarded points proportionally to their accuracy. During a regular academic term the game can be played several times. This guide offers suggestions for using the game in the classroom.

Do countries with higher state capacities have better COVID-19 responses in terms of containing the spread of virus? Not necessarily, according to a recent Regional Economist article.

“State capacity” refers to how effectively a government delivers services to its citizens, the authors explained in the article, which was written by Yi Wen, an economist and assistant vice president; Iris Arbogast, a research associate; and Brian Reinbold, a former research associate. They examined COVID-19 response as a potential revealed measure of state capacity and compared it with two conventional measures.

The authors found that wealthier nations with greater state capacities haven’t necessarily had the best outcomes. In addition, anecdotal evidence from six countries suggests actions taken by a government may have a greater effect on containment than wealth does.

The FRED Blog has looked at the speed of Internet adoption in a few countries: the U.S., China, Korea, Germany, and India. Today, we use World Bank data to widen our view and map Internet use rates around the world. Then we connect those rates to countries’ per capita GDPs.

Our first GeoFRED map identifies the number of Internet users per 100 people in each country. In countries colored blue, over 80% of the population uses the Internet: Liechtenstein is at the top, with a ratio of 99.55%. In countries colored red, under 20% of the population uses the Internet: Eritrea is at the bottom, with a ratio of 1.31%.

The FRED Blog has looked at the speed of Internet adoption in a few countries: the U.S., China, Korea, Germany, and India. Today, we use World Bank data to widen our view and map Internet use rates around the world. Then we connect those rates to countries’ per capita GDPs.

Our first GeoFRED map identifies the number of Internet users per 100 people in each country. In countries colored blue, over 80% of the population uses the Internet: Liechtenstein is at the top, with a ratio of 99.55%. In countries colored red, under 20% of the population uses the Internet: Eritrea is at the bottom, with a ratio of 1.31%.

The widespread adoption of new technologies is key for economic growth. Companies that adopt better technology can produce more goods and services with fewer inputs. However, in the United States, the adoption of new technologies has been uneven. Firms in big cities have spent more money per employee and a larger share of their total investment budget on new information and communications technology (ICT) than firms in small cities. Rubinton (2020) examines the relationship between ICT spending and city size and finds that the incentives to adopt new technologies will be stronger in bigger cities with abundant skilled labor and in cities with a comparative advantage in using skilled labor. 

The Relationship Between ICT Spending and City Size

The figure shows the relationship between firm-level ICT spending, conditional on the size of the firm's city, relative to ICT spending in an average city,1 with controls for firm-specific differences such as...

A version of this opinion piece originally appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on April 12, 2021.

By Mary Suiter, Assistant Vice President and Economic Education Officer

Over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, parents and educators know too well the stress of distance learning and intermittent school closures. The prospect of returning to some kind of “normal” is cause for cautious optimism. Yet the pandemic will cast a long shadow over students’ financial lives, especially students in under-resourced schools.

Take lifetime earnings. It’s tough to tally the impact of pandemic-related learning losses on students’ future income, although experts are trying:

The widespread adoption of new technologies is key for economic growth. Companies that adopt better technology can produce more goods and services with fewer inputs. However, in the United States, the adoption of new technologies has been uneven. Firms in big cities have spent more money per employee and a larger share of their total investment budget on new information and communications technology (ICT) than firms in small cities. Rubinton (2020) examines the relationship between ICT spending and city size and finds that the incentives to adopt new technologies will be stronger in bigger cities with abundant skilled labor and in cities with a comparative advantage in using skilled labor. 

The Relationship Between ICT Spending and City Size

The figure shows the relationship between firm-level ICT spending, conditional on the size of the firm's city, relative to ICT spending in an average city,1 with controls for firm-specific differences such as...

A version of this opinion piece originally appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on April 12, 2021.

By Mary Suiter, Assistant Vice President and Economic Education Officer

Over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, parents and educators know too well the stress of distance learning and intermittent school closures. The prospect of returning to some kind of “normal” is cause for cautious optimism. Yet the pandemic will cast a long shadow over students’ financial lives, especially students in under-resourced schools.

Take lifetime earnings. It’s tough to tally the impact of pandemic-related learning losses on students’ future income, although experts are trying:

A version of this opinion piece originally appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on April 12, 2021.

By Mary Suiter, Assistant Vice President and Economic Education Officer

Over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, parents and educators know too well the stress of distance learning and intermittent school closures. The prospect of returning to some kind of “normal” is cause for cautious optimism. Yet the pandemic will cast a long shadow over students’ financial lives, especially students in under-resourced schools.

Take lifetime earnings. It’s tough to tally the impact of pandemic-related learning losses on students’ future income, although experts are trying:

The community development functions of all 12 Reserve banks within the Federal Reserve System and the Board of Governors surveyed representatives of nonprofit organizations, financial institutions, government agencies and other community organizations. The most recent version of the survey was conducted between Oct.7 and Oct. 16 and received 1,127 responses.

According to the responses to the October survey:

In order to aid in the retrieval of information from this publication, significant tables, charts, and/or articles have been extracted and can be viewed individually or across a span of issues.

The FRED Blog makes every attempt to offer right-off-the-vine FRED data, from the prices paid by consumers for strawberries, grapes, and bananas to the prices received by producers for apples and oranges. And today’s graph harvests a similar set of data with a focus on freshness.

The graph shows the proportion of consumer expenditures on fresh fruit (in orange) and fresh vegetables (in green) relative to their processed counterparts.

Consumers steadily spend almost twice as much on fresh vegetables as they do on the processed kind—a pattern that has been nearly constant between 1984 and 2019.

The appetite for fresh fruit has steadily grown since 2001: Between 1984 and 2001, consumers spent almost one and a half times more on fresh fruit than they spent on processed fruit. At the turn of the decade, that proportion started to increase and, as of 2019, stood at almost three times as much.

Consider the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s resources...