Increased productivity could be the key to preserving robust, noninflationary GDP growth. But what is the best measure of productivity? This Economic Commentary explores the relationship between labor productivity and multifactor productivity, a measure that accounts for factors other than...

An examination of the payment problems that will have to be overcome as the electronic marketplace evolves, including the issues of trust between buyer and seller, security of payment instruments, individual privacy versus law enforcement concerns, and the implications for monetary policy.

A critical look at the report of the National Commission to Ensure a Strong Competitive Airline Industry, including an examination of the current state of the industry and prospects for the future.

Money laundering has gone on since the first crime was committed for profit, but it has been explicitly illegal only since 1986. Interest in this topic soars whenever a major “laundromat” is uncovered. This Economic Commentary describes the money laundering process, summarizes the evolving...

Despite the increasing use of credit and debit cards and the emergence of various electronic payment instruments, currency remains king-at least for small-dollar-value transactions. The author examines the Federal Reserve's present role in providing currency and explores the challenges and...

In the past decade, the U.S. economy has witnessed a tremendous surge in the usage of electronic payment processing services and an increased importance of the firms that provide these services. The payments industry has also undergone changes in cost structure with the introduction of new...

Because the automated clearinghouse (ACH) has been found to have lower social costs than paper checks, the Federal Reserve has been promoting more widespread use of ACH by lowering ACH processing fees. In this paper we have obtained the first numerical estimates of ACH demand elasticities, a...

We propose a set of consistency conditions that frontier efficiency measures should meet to be most useful for regulatory analysis or other purposes. The efficiency estimates should be consistent in their efficiency levels, rankings, and identification of best and worst firms, consistent over...

Real average U.S. per capita personal income growth over the last 65 years exceeded a remarkable 400 percent. Also notable over this period is that the stark income differences across states have narrowed considerably: In 1939 the highest income state’s per capita personal income was 4.5 times...