Presented at the Annual Dealmakers Event, San Diego, California.

There has been much talk about a disappointing recovery in the wake of the Great Recession—that this time it is much slower. Comparing features of this recovery to past recoveries casts some doubt on that view. The comparison is made using a scaled-down version of the sophisticated and...

The past recession has hit the labor market especially hard, and economists are wondering whether some fundamentals of the market have changed because of that blow. Many are suggesting that the natural rate of long-term unemployment—the level of unemployment an economy can’t go below—has...

Public sentiment says the recession isn't over. Never mind that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the arbiter of recessions, declared that the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 officially ended in June 2009. An unrelenting pessimism constrains the recovery as consumers spend...

Delivered at the High Profile Speaker Series, New York Society of Security Analysts, New York City. November 8, 2010.

During the last recession, credit flows suffered their worst slowdown since World War II. A look at selected credit market measures gives some insight into why the slowdown was so severe. The measures also show that in spite of the size of the shock, credit flows actually recovered extremely...

Presentation to the Haas Business School, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

According to participants in the Chicago Fed’s annual Automotive Outlook Symposium, solid economic growth is forecasted for the nation this year and in 2013. Inflation is expected to fall in 2012 and remain unchanged in 2013, and the unemployment rate is anticipated to move lower but remain...