You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed via our website or agreed to receive emails from the St. Louis Fed. To ensure you continue to receive the latest Central Banker: News and Notes from the St. Louis Fed, add us to your address book. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from all lists.

By Victoria Gregory, Economist, St. Louis Fed; Guido Menzio, Professor, New York University; and David Wiczer; Assistant Professor, Stony Brook University

Recessions do not affect every worker equally; the depth of the decline and the speed of recovery differ along a variety of observable dimensions such as sex, race, education and age.

The pandemic-induced recession and the following recovery have made this glaringly apparent, prompting discussion and investigation around phrases such as a “k-shaped” recovery—in which some workers have done well and others still struggle—and the “she-cession”—in which labor turmoil disproportionately affected women.

But asymmetric recessions are nothing new. As we argue, the dynamics of recent recessions, with their slow recoveries, are driven more importantly by which workers are searching for jobs, not the jobs themselves. Yet, while some groups of workers have always experienced higher unemployment rates during...

Global Value Chains and U.S. Economic Activity During COVID-19

This article investigates the role of global value chains in the declines of manufacturing employment and output in the U.S. during COVID-19. It finds that such chains played a significant role in the decline of output and employment across U.S. manufactures. It also finds a modest impact of diversifying or renationalizing global value chains in mitigating the economy’s exposure to foreign shocks.

Regional Gasoline Price Dynamics

A large literature has argued that gasoline prices respond more rapidly to increases in oil prices than to decreases in oil prices. Moreover, some of this literature has found heterogeneous asymmetry in gas price responses across cities. This paper reconsiders the causes of heterogeneous asymmetric pass-through by looking at city-level characteristics. It finds that while city-level characteristics cannot (robustly) explain variation in the magnitudes of the...

Residential property can reveal insights about the financial stability of a country’s economy. The FRED graph above shows the annual changes in the residential property prices for both the United States and Australia for the past 20 years. While the size and location of properties obviously affect residential property tax values, so do the financing of these properties and financial market conditions.

For example, the Financial Crisis of 2008 dramatically dampened U.S. property prices. The U.S. house price index reflects the economic turmoil during that time, when annual house prices declined as much as 19.6% in the third quarter of 2008 from their levels during the same quarter of the previous year. The crisis also trickled down to Australia, causing local property prices to decline, although not as deeply as in the U.S.

In 2019, price declines in Australia’s housing market repeated those from 2008. While Australia’s economy was doing relatively well...

The Federal Reserve has a mandate from Congress to promote stable prices and maximum sustainable employment. The Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC’s) monetary policy framework spells out its strategy to achieve these goals over the medium and longer run.

During 2019 and the first half of 2020, the Fed undertook a review of its monetary policy strategy, tools and communications. Following that review, the Fed introduced a new monetary policy framework in August 2020. The one-year anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on the FOMC’s execution of the new framework so far, particularly with respect to inflation.

Residential property can reveal insights about the financial stability of a country’s economy. The FRED graph above shows the annual changes in the residential property prices for both the United States and Australia for the past 20 years. While the size and location of properties obviously affect residential property tax values, so do the financing of these properties and financial market conditions.

For example, the Financial Crisis of 2008 dramatically dampened U.S. property prices. The U.S. house price index reflects the economic turmoil during that time, when annual house prices declined as much as 19.6% in the third quarter of 2008 from their levels during the same quarter of the previous year. The crisis also trickled down to Australia, causing local property prices to decline, although not as deeply as in the U.S.

In 2019, price declines in Australia’s housing market repeated those from 2008. While Australia’s economy was doing relatively well...

You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed via our website or agreed to receive emails from the St. Louis Fed. To ensure you continue to receive the latest Central Banker: News and Notes from the St. Louis Fed, add us to your address book. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from all lists.

The Federal Reserve has a mandate from Congress to promote stable prices and maximum sustainable employment. The Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC’s) monetary policy framework spells out its strategy to achieve these goals over the medium and longer run.

During 2019 and the first half of 2020, the Fed undertook a review of its monetary policy strategy, tools and communications. Following that review, the Fed introduced a new monetary policy framework in August 2020. The one-year anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on the FOMC’s execution of the new framework so far, particularly with respect to inflation.

Residential property can reveal insights about the financial stability of a country’s economy. The FRED graph above shows the annual changes in the residential property prices for both the United States and Australia for the past 20 years. While the size and location of properties obviously affect residential property tax values, so do the financing of these properties and financial market conditions.

For example, the Financial Crisis of 2008 dramatically dampened U.S. property prices. The U.S. house price index reflects the economic turmoil during that time, when annual house prices declined as much as 19.6% in the third quarter of 2008 from their levels during the same quarter of the previous year. The crisis also trickled down to Australia, causing local property prices to decline, although not as deeply as in the U.S.

In 2019, price declines in Australia’s housing market repeated those from 2008. While Australia’s economy was doing relatively well...

Global Value Chains and U.S. Economic Activity During COVID-19

This article investigates the role of global value chains in the declines of manufacturing employment and output in the U.S. during COVID-19. It finds that such chains played a significant role in the decline of output and employment across U.S. manufactures. It also finds a modest impact of diversifying or renationalizing global value chains in mitigating the economy’s exposure to foreign shocks.

Regional Gasoline Price Dynamics

A large literature has argued that gasoline prices respond more rapidly to increases in oil prices than to decreases in oil prices. Moreover, some of this literature has found heterogeneous asymmetry in gas price responses across cities. This paper reconsiders the causes of heterogeneous asymmetric pass-through by looking at city-level characteristics. It finds that while city-level characteristics cannot (robustly) explain variation in the magnitudes of the...

Given ongoing disruptions to child care arrangements, many working parents, especially of very young children, must provide more hands-on care during the workday, rendering them unable to work the same number of hours (if at all) than they otherwise would. This represents an important labor supply bottleneck that is contributing to a shortage of workers that has attracted considerable public attention.

According to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, 25% of parents with very young children reported that their children were unable to attend child care arrangements in mid- to late-May* because of the pandemic, versus 16% for those with school-age children. Importantly, these constraints predominantly keep women out of the workforce: Roughly 39% of prime-working-age women with children (versus 12% of men) reported not working because they were caring for children not in school or day care. This lopsided care arrangement has the capacity to depress women’s upward...

The views expressed are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Federal Reserve System, or the Board of Governors.

The views expressed are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Federal Reserve System, or the Board of Governors.

Global Value Chains and U.S. Economic Activity During COVID-19

This article investigates the role of global value chains in the declines of manufacturing employment and output in the U.S. during COVID-19. It finds that such chains played a significant role in the decline of output and employment across U.S. manufactures. It also finds a modest impact of diversifying or renationalizing global value chains in mitigating the economy’s exposure to foreign shocks.

Regional Gasoline Price Dynamics

A large literature has argued that gasoline prices respond more rapidly to increases in oil prices than to decreases in oil prices. Moreover, some of this literature has found heterogeneous asymmetry in gas price responses across cities. This paper reconsiders the causes of heterogeneous asymmetric pass-through by looking at city-level characteristics. It finds that while city-level characteristics cannot (robustly) explain variation in the magnitudes of the...