In our next article, "Crises, Contagion, and Coordination," Loretta Mester summarizes last year's Policy Forum. On pages 16-17, you'll find information about this year's Forum: "Managing the Recovery in Uncertain Times." In "Changes in the Use of Electronic Means of Payment: 1995-2001," Mester...

Relaxation of the rules governing where banks can expand and new technologies for providing banking services have contributed to rapid consolidation in the industry. In addition, the number of commercial banks in the United States has been shrinking, and banks have been getting larger. Should we...

Managing the recovery in uncertain times was the topic of our third annual Philadelphia Fed Policy Forum held on November 14, 2003. This event, sponsored by the Bank’s Research Department, brought together a group of highly respected academics, policymakers, and market economists, for...

Credit scoring is already widely used for consumer lending and is becoming more commonly used in mortgage lending. Now, small business lending is getting into the scoring act. What does this mean for the commercial loan industry? And will it benefit small businesses? In this article, Loretta...

This article presents an update of an article first published in the March/April 2000 Business Review, which presented data from the 1995 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances. Loretta Mester, author of the original article, has compiled information from the 1998 survey to keep readers...

Loretta Mester summarizes the discussion at the 2006 Philadelphia Fed Policy Forum