While analysts have devoted much attention to housing market performance at the national, state, and even local level, far less attention has been paid to housing markets at the regional level. We investigate how regional vacancies, population, net migration, and other demographic variables have...

Several recent research efforts have found that stimulative fiscal policy — government spending or tax cuts — can have unusual effects when nominal interest rates are as low as they are today. In particular, some studies have found that the government spending "multiplier" can be much larger...

When consumers use debit or credit cards to make purchases, merchants are assessed fees for processing the transactions, the largest of which is called an "interchange" fee. Rising interchange fees, along with the growing dominance of card transactions in the payments system, have brought...

In its 100-year history, many of the Federal Reserve's actions in the name of financial stability have come through emergency lending once financial crises are underway. It is not obvious that the Fed should be involved in emergency lending, however, since expectations of such lending can...

The money market mutual fund (MMMF) industry was one of many segments of the financial sector that experienced significant volatility during the 2007–08 financial crisis. Reform efforts have been underway to make the industry more resilient to shocks, but proposals have been controversial....

In 1966, Congress gave the Federal Reserve authority to purchase the debt of agencies guaranteed or owned by the federal government. This same authority has enabled the Fed's purchases of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and debt of government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie...

Concerns about fiscal imbalances in Europe and the United States have led to intense debates about whether governments should dramatically cut spending or increase taxes to reduce government debt — a course of action often called fiscal "austerity." But is austerity likely to hurt economic...

Over the past two years the Federal Reserve has engaged in large-scale asset purchases (LSAPs), often grouped under the heading of "quantitative easing," as an alternative means of stimulating the economy when policy rates are at their zero lower bound. Theoretical and empirical research shows...