This paper presents empirical evidence on the hypothesis that aggregate price disturbances cause or worsen financial instability. We construct two annual indexes of financial conditions for the United States covering 1790-1997, and estimate the effect of aggregate price shocks on each index...

From the 1960s to the 1980s, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis played an important and highly visible role in the development and advocacy of stabilization policy based on the targeting of monetary aggregates. Research conducted at the St. Louis Bank extended earlier monetarist analysis that...

Since 1980, commercial bank earnings have varied widely across states. The authors find that much of this variation can be attributed to difference in economic conditions, and they suggest that interstate branching should promote a more stable banking system by enabling greater geographic...

This article examines the economic environments in which past U.S. stock market booms occurred as a first step toward understanding how asset price booms come about and whether monetary policy should be used to defuse booms. The authors identify several episodes of sustained rapid rises in...