How well does the market for Federal Funds Futures predict? Statistical estimates of the market's efficiency in predicting FOMC policy actions indicate that the forecasts contain useful information and are unbiased at the usual 5 percent level. That finding is of interest because it means that...

This article emphasizes the role of nonprice rationing in credit crunches. It proposes a process for identifying credit crunches centered on the political economy of the period under study. The process is applied to the U.S. for the 1960-92 period, and a variable is constructed that indicates...

Since early 1990, the results of the Federal Reserve Board's Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices have been cited frequently as an indicator of general credit availability. Results from the Board's survey suggest that a considerable share of respondent banks were...

Recent survey results from the Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey indicate that, on net, many banks tightened their loan standards during 1990 and early 1991. This article investigates the implications of these results by comparing them to survey responses from previous periods

Overbuilding in commercial real estate in the 1980s is commonly viewed as an example of a speculative bubble. This paper questions that view and proposes an environment in which overbuilding could occur as a rational response to fiscal policy in the 1980s. Further, this paper contends that...

After deteriorating rapidly in the early 1980s, the financial condition of agriculture leveled off by the middle of the decade. Since then, most measures of the sector's financial condition have strengthened. In 1987, total farm income was higher and production expenses were lower than in the...

The agricultural sector is confronted with a number of problems as the year begins. Strong export demand for agricultural products, which raised farm incomes and attracted resources into agricultural commodity production in the 1970s, collapsed in the mid-1980s, leading to large stock buildups,...

Economists from the U. S. Department of Agriculture as well as agricultural industry and trade analysts attended the 1985 Outlook Conference held in Washington, D. C. in early December. Their appraisal of the agricultural economy for 1985 is summarized here

Overbuilding in commercial real estate in the 1980s is commonly viewed as an example of a speculative bubble. This paper questions that view and proposes an environment in which overbuilding could occur as a rational response to fiscal policy in the 1980s. Further, this paper contends that...