The authors analyze the usefulness of a new measure of nonfinancial leverage as an early warning indicator for financial instability and its consequences for economic growth.

This article discusses how the Chicago Fed National Activity Index has performed as a “real-time” indicator of economic activity and related inflationary pressure.

The authors present an alternative version of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI), which is constructed using a methodology that allows for a more robust treatment of the underlying data series than its traditional methodology. This alternative CFNAI produces superior predictions of...

We approach the task of monitoring financial stability within a framework that balances the costs and benefits of identifying future crisis-like conditions based on past U.S. financial crises. Our results indicate that the National Financial Conditions Index (NFCI) produced by the Federal...

Monitoring financial stability requires an understanding of both how traditional and evolving financial markets relate to each other and how they relate to economic conditions. This article describes two new indexes of financial conditions that aim to quantify these relationships.

During the recent financial crisis, the Federal Reserve implemented a series of extraordinary and unconventional policies to alleviate the impact of the crisis on financial markets and the economy. In this paper, we examine the effects of these policies on broad financial market conditions,...

The Chicago Fed dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model is used for policy analysis and forecasting at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. This article describes its specification and estimation, its dynamic characteristics and how it is used to forecast the US economy. In many...

This article provides the public a first look at a new set of indexes constructed from the Chicago Fed’s Beige Book survey, and describes their ability to track economic activity.

It is difficult to consistently improve upon forecasts of inflation based solely on the most recent data on inflation. In this article, we show how to do so. Our main finding is that the most robust forecasts combine information from several different forecasting models, each of which...

This article explains how the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Midwest Economy Index (MEI) can be used to produce quarterly estimates of the annual gross state product (GSP) growth of each state in the Seventh Federal Reserve District.