In October 1990 questions were raised about real estate problems in the life insurance industry after the ninth largest life company sustained a major loss as a consequence of a write-down of real-estate-related assets. The value of insurance company stocks declined as the financial community...

The rate of capital formation by businesses has long been among the most closely watched elements of the national accounts. During the last decade, this component of investment attracted considerable interest as capital spending helped support our uncommonly high rate of economic growth. Not...

The majority of retirement savings is invested in cor-porate equity, attracted by the historically high average returns offered by stocks. But substantial risk also accompanies investments in stocks, a risk that seems especially costly after the recent financial crisis. Not only did the value of...

More than half of households’ retirement savings are invested in stocks. During the recent financial crisis, stocks lost more than one-half their market value from the fall of 2007 to their lows in the spring of 2009. Since the trough in the market, stock prices have risen to nearly 85 percent...

Since their inception, insurance companies, banks, and other financial institutions have played prominent roles in our capital markets. These intermediaries have fostered saving and investment by issuing liabilities that appeal to savers in order to purchase the obligations of investors on...

Central banks in larger industrialized countries increasingly favor market operations, the buying and selling of securities, over standing facilities, such as lending and deposit facilities, in conducting their monetary policies. In their market operations, foreign central banks most commonly...

After the sharp run-up in stock prices during the bull market of the late 1990s and their subsequent collapse in 2001–2002, the prices of equities as measured by the S&P 500 are once again uncommonly high relative to companies’ current and prospective earnings, causing some to question...

By most standards, the price of equities in the United States has risen remarkably rapidly during the last 15 years. Since 1994 alone, the Standard & Poor's index of 500 stock prices has doubled. Although the rapid growth of corporations' profits has propelled the price of their stock,...

More than two-thirds of the $25 trillion of financial assets held in the United States is managed on behalf of investors by financial intermediaries, ranging from trusts, mutual funds, and mortgage pools to insurance companies, pension funds, and banks. Because of their importance, governments...

The U.S. Department of Commerce regularly surveys businesses on their plans for capital investment. This article assesses the contribution that these surveys make to forecasts of business investment, once other economic variables are taken into account. The author finds that the surveys have...