By incorporating the Harvey accumulator into the large approximate dynamic factor framework of Doz et al. (2006), we are able to construct a coincident index of financial conditions from a large unbalanced panel of mixed frequency financial indicators. We relate our financial conditions index,...

Examining industrialized countries, the authors find that large deficits are not associated with higher inflation contemporaneously, nor are they associated with the emergence of higher inflation in subsequent years. This finding suggests that countries that can afford large deficits have built...

The authors present an alternative version of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI), which is constructed using a methodology that allows for a more robust treatment of the underlying data series than its traditional methodology. This alternative CFNAI produces superior predictions of...

We document racial differences in retail prices paid for physically identical products. Black households pay 2.0 percent higher prices than white households, and Hispanic households pay 0.8 percent higher prices. This difference suggest that conventional measures of racial income differences...

Renewable energy and battery storage are seen as complementary technologies that can together facilitate reductions in carbon emissions. We develop and estimate a dynamic competitive equilibrium model of storage investment and operations to evaluate the adoption trajectory of utility-scale...

The use of “Big Data” to explain fluctuations in the broader economy or guide the business decisions of a firm is now so commonplace that in some instances it has even begun to rival more traditional government statistics and business analytics. Big data sources can very often provide...

Productivity reflects not only how efficiently inputs are transformed into outputs, but also how well information is applied to resource allocation decisions. This paper examines how information technology has affected capacity utilization in the trucking industry. Estimates for 1997 indicate...