Mid-sized companies--those with annual sales between $10 million and $250 million--produce a significant percentage of the nation's output; thus, any conditions impeding their performance should concern public policymakers. One such condition may be insufficient access to short-term credit at...

New England banks are currently suffering from problems similar to those that caused the demise of many Texas banks. In both cases, a boom in the real-estate sector was followed by a sharp contraction caused by weakness in the leading sectors of the economy. In both cases, banks had greatly...

Because of the softening of the New England economy in the past two years, the availability of labor has become a less pressing issue for New England businesses. However, projections of slower growth in the working-age population in the 1990s, attributable to changes in the age structure, hold...

In the aftermath of the real estate slump and the attendant financial troubles of the New England banks, it is natural to look for causes and contributing factors. One phenomenon that has received its share of the blame is the rush of conversions by thrifts in the mid 1980s from mutual to stock...

New England's recovery from our most recent recession has been marked by unusually slow growth in bank lending. As of the third quarter of 1994, total loans still had recovered only to 76 percent of the level attained at the peak in the third quarter of 1989. Numerous recent studies have...

The United States has begun the huge task of reforming its health care system and many individuals have already begun to consider the likely impact of health care reform on their state's economy. Given the momentum of change in the private sector and at the state level, the U.S. health care...