In making monetary policy, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) relies in part on the Beige Book, a report on regional economic conditions released publicly about two weeks before each FOMC meeting. The Beige Book summarizes economic conditions in each of the twelve Federal Reserve districts...

This paper estimates a simple model of the Federal Reserve's "reaction function" - that is, the relationship between economic developments and the fed's response to them. We focus on how this estimated reaction function has changed over time. Such changes are not surprising given compositional...

This article decomposes U.S. GDP into components associated with major macroeconomic disturbances in order to identify the likely causes of the 1990 recession. Four types of disturbances--aggregate supply, aggregate spending, money demand and money supply--are identified in the empirical...

Monetary policy was freed from the straightjacket of pegging U.S. Treasury interest rates following the Treasury-Federal Reserve Accord in 1951. This newfound freedom led to a growing debate inside and outside the Federal Reserve System about the appropriate measures to use as operating guides....

Many economists believe that a central bank’s transparency about its objectives, economic outlook, and policy changes affect the public’s views about future economic and financial conditions. In keeping with this theory, since 1994 the Federal Open Market Committee has gradually increased...

The computer sector has been one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. economy over the past two decades. The dynamic nature of the computer sector and the sector's increased prominence in overall spending in the economy have led some analysts to suggest that the economy is entering a New...