The four-year rise in the U.S. poverty rate that began withthe recession of 2001 and the images of devastation fromNew Orleans after Hurricane Katrina has led to a renewedinterest in poverty among researchers and policymakers.Mayors of large cities have been prominent in the reneweddiscussion....

[...]This article examines the U.S. Treasury’s decision tointroduce a new financial instrument—Treasury bills—in1929. We show that Treasury officials were willing to committhe resources required to introduce the new security in orderto mitigate several flaws in the structure of Treasury...

[...]This article examines how the nature and characteristics ofhedge funds may generate “market failures” that make CCRMfor exposures to hedge funds intrinsically more difficult tomanage, both for the individual firm and for policymakersconcerned with systemic risk. We put forward no...

[...]This article provides a systematic evaluation of severalproposed measures of U.S. core inflation: the popular ex foodand energy series, an ex energy series, a weighted median series,and an exponentially smoothed series. To inform the currentdebate on this issue, we adopt a general framework...

[...]This article documents the “return in retail” in the U.S.banking industry and offers some insight into why this shift hasoccurred. Trends in retail loan shares, retail deposit shares, thebalance sheets of U.S. consumers, and the number of bankbranches all indicate an increased focus on...

[...]This article attempts to bridge some of the gap betweenresearch on real-side FDI and work on financial sector FDI bypresenting a selective survey of the literature. We argue thatreal-side and financial sector FDI share many features.Accordingly, there are many lessons in the research that...

[...]This article examines why, during the 1970s, Treasuryofficials changed the framework within which they made their debt management decisions. We show that the Treasuryfinanced an unusually rapid expansion of the deficit in 1975with a flurry of tactical offerings. The offerings disrupted...

[...]This article analyzes empirical evidence on the limits ofarbitrage in the interest rate swap market as well as on howtrading risk can affect market liquidity and amplify shocks inasset prices. We study these issues in terms of the behavior ofthe interest rate swap spread—the spread...

[...]This paper examines how repo contracting conventionsevolved in the 1980s. In the next section, we consider therevival of repo financing in the 1950s and the contractingconventions associated with that revival. Section 3 describeshow the rising level and volatility of interest rates and...

[...]This paper empirically examines the spatial and temporalresponses of the New York City economy to a large, butspatially concentrated, exogenous shock to its capital stock:the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Our focus on thecity’s response allows us to draw inferences about how...