John B. Carlson

States' unfunded pension obligations to their current and retired employees have exploded in recent years to levels that are estimated to be between $750 billion and $4.4 trillion.

States' unfunded pension obligations to their current and retired employees have exploded in recent years to levels that are estimated to be between $750 billion and $4.4 trillion.

This paper develops an adaptive learning formulation of an extension to the Ball, Mankiw, and Reis (2005) sticky information model that incorporates endogenous inattention.

This paper demonstrates how options on federal funds futures, which began trading in March 2003, can be used to recover the implied probability density function (PDF) for future Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) interest rate outcomes.

This paper addresses the output-price volatility puzzle by studying the interaction of optimal monetary policy and agents' beliefs.

If valuation ratios return to their historical means any time soon, then equity prices must fall substantially, or earnings and dividends must accelerate sharply, or some combination of these events must occur.

We find strong evidence of a stable “money demand” relationship for MZM and M2M through the 1990s.

For long periods since 1982, core inflation has behaved as if it were generated by a process with a fixed mean and serially independent error term.

Credit default swaps were traded over the counter before the financial crisis. Reforms are being put in place which will move the majority of credit default swaps transactions to more transparent exchanges.

The Federal Reserve balance sheet’s size and composition have changed dramatically since September 2008.

In February 1994, the FOMC began a new era in transparency, gradually building a communications apparatus that conveys information about the Committee’s decisions and expectations.

Mutual funds enable small, less experienced investors to hold diversified portfolios of stocks and bonds at relatively low cost.

Options contracts on federal funds futures, a new financial instrument introduced earlier this year, can be analyzed to gauge public expectations of future Fed actions.

Revelations of corporate fraud in 2002 shook the public’s confidence in financial reporting and led to calls for reform.

In spite of the recent recession, hopes for the New Economy have been little daunted. Surprisingly robust productivity growth during the recent downturn provides compelling new evidence that something truly fundamental is going on.

The dividend yield on stocks has dropped sharply over the last decade. Is its drop reflective of irrational exuberance, as some have claimed? This Commentary assesses alternative explanations for the diminished dividend yield.

Should the end of the bull market have come as a surprise?

The average annual return of the S&P 500 index since 1994 has exceeded 25 percent.

It has been almost three years since Chairman Greenspan posed the foregoing question and thereby launched the phrase “irrational exuberance” into the economic idiom.

Optimism abounds. Just look at indicators like consumer sentiment and the stock market.

When things appear to be working well, there’s a natural reluctance to tinker.

Immediately after its March 25 meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced that it had "decided to tighten money market conditions slightly."

The total amount of U.S. currency held by the non bank public equals about $375 billion, or nearly $1,400 for every man, woman, and child in the country. Clearly, few individuals ever hold this much cash at any point in time.

In years past, the growth rates of money measures such as M2 received considerable attention because evidence showed that there was a simple and stable long-run relationship between M2, nominal income, and inflation.

Events rarely unfold exactly as we foresee them. In the monetary policy arena, for example, the timing and intensity of specific actions can be difficult to anticipate.

Inflation, as measured by the rate of change of the Consumer Price Index (CP1), has slowed substantially in recent years.

In 1993, monetary policy was most unusual because of what did not happen: The federal funds rate objective remained unchanged.

Congress requires that the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve report semiannually on the System’s plans and objectives for monetary policy.

The behavior of the monetary aggregates— particularly M2—is often an important consideration in the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decisions.

Nothing complicates the life of an economist quite like institutional change. When institutions change, patterns of behavior change, and long-standing economic relationships may break down.

Monetary indicators can help policymakers to evaluate the likely success or failure of policy instrument settings.

The behavior of money has changed greatly in the 1980s.

Earlier this year, foreign central banks made very substantial purchases of U.S. securities.

In April 1987, the value of the U.S. dollar fell substantially, continuing a slide that began in February 1985 when the dollar peaked in relation to most currencies.

Since 1982, the indebtedness of domestic nonfinancial sectors has increased from around 140 percent of nominal gross national product (GNP) to 170 percent.

The Federal Reserve is required by the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 to report to Congress its annual growth objectives for money and credit.

Interest payments on the federal debt have grown faster than the economy since 1974.

A day doesn’t pass without some public discussion of the federal deficit. Advocates of immediate deficit cutting use terms like ’explosive’ and ’unstable’ to describe the debt burden, suggesting imminent catastrophe.

In recent years prominent economists from diverse schools of thought have urged policymakers to establish long-term targets for nominal income.

When an impending surge in the money supply filled the financial news in March of this year, the reports stated that the surge would result from above-average income tax refunds and early Social Security payments.

Cash management-the control of payments, receipts, and any resulting transactions balances-has become increasingly sophisticated over the past decade.

The thrift industry primarily serves as an intermediary between people who wish to save in relatively liquid deposits and people who wish to borrow mortgage funds.

For a number of decades, economists have questioned traditional distinctions between money and other liquid assets and between commercial banks and other financial intermediaries.

Much attention has been given to the Federal Open Market Committee’s September decision to extend the average maturity of its portfolio by selling short-term Treasury securities and purchasing longer-term Treasury securities.

The spring issue of Forefront, the Cleveland Fed’s policy magazine, explores the troubles facing state and local government finances.

Frequently asked questions about inflation ranging from how to achieve price stability to the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate to how to gauge when people are concerned about inflation.