From their beginnings in 1908, credit unions have differed from banks. One fundamental difference was that share accounts in credit unions, unlike bank deposits, were not debt. Credit unions could delay and discount payments. Thus, during the Great Depression, when thousands of banks failed, no...

Mergers tend to improve credit union cost efficiency. When the acquirer is much larger than the target credit union, target members benefit in terms of lower loan rates and higher deposit rates, while acquirer members see little change. When merger partners are more equal in size, these benefits...

The central goverment now issues both nominal and iflation indexed long-term bonds in the United Kingdom. The difference in their yields provides one measure of the long-term expevted rate of inflation. The evidence suggests that higher long-term, expected , real yields are associated with...

This article assesses the extent to which government-administered financial shocks and lower interest rates can account for the massive accumulation of bank excess reserves in the Great Depression. Both factors are shown to be statistically significant. Financial shocks did exert astatistically...

Homeownership has long been a cherished American goal, but many now find that homeownership is no longer possible. The median household income of potential first-time homebuyers is now estimated to be only three-quarters that required to afford the median-priced starter home. As a consequence,...

Over the past few decades, assets in the credit union industry have grown considerably and have grown relative to banking. As with banking, the credit union industry has experienced considerable structural change that, in part, involved failures. While the data on failures in the banking...

This Economic Letter reviews research on whether measures of consumer attitudes improve forecasts of consumer spending.