Discussion – comment on Richard Freeman, in this issue – Special Issue: Earnings Inequality Peter Gottschalk Katherine O’Regan and John Quigley have written an excellent paper, using intra-urban spatial variation to try to isolate the connection between neighborhood and employment and schooling outcomes for teenagers. They find strong effects of neighborhood poverty and unemployment on […]
Category: New England Economic Review
New England’s Educational Advantage: Past Successes and Future Prospects – Statistical Data Included Yolanda K. Kodrzycki Any enumeration of New England’s competitive strengths is likely to include the high education levels of its work force. The growing availability of highly educated workers in the region has permitted the development of industries that make use of […]
Inflation-indexed bonds: the dog that didn’t bark Richard W. Kopcke The introduction by the U.S. Treasury of inflation-indexed notes was one of the most widely publicized innovations in the U.S. capital markets in recent years. Since their introduction in January 1997, $57 billion in 5-, 10-, and 30-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) has been issued, […]
Specialization, risk, and capital in banking Ralph C. Kimball Diversification is certainly the simplest and perhaps the oldest approach to managing the trade-off between portfolio risk and return. Unless the returns on the assets in the portfolio are perfectly positively correlated, the risk of a diversified portfolio will be less than the weighted average of […]
A primer on U.S. stock price indices – includes related article on the relationship between stock indices and the market Peter Fortune The measurement of the “average” price of common stocks is a matter of widespread interest. Investors want to know how “the market” is doing, and to be able to compare their returns with […]
Discussion – comment on Katherine O’Regan and John Quigley, in this issue – Special Issue: Earnings Inequality Edward L. Glaeser In this paper Richard Freeman has put the best case forward for the importance of labor market institutions in explaining the level and trend in earnings inequality. Motivated by his broad reading of the literature […]
Building an infrastructure for financial stability: An Overview – of financial crisis in U.S. history, efforts toward reform – Statistical Data Included Eric S. Rosengren Vice President and Economist, and Economist, respectively, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. ********** Numerous conferences organized in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 1997-98 offered analyses of what went […]
Are we investing too little? – U.S. investment spending and saving Lynn Elaine Browne One of the most disappointing features of U.S. economic performance over the past 20 years has been the slowing of growth in productivity and, as a result, in real incomes. While productivity, or the growth in output per man-hour, increased by […]
Problem loans at New England banks, 1989 to 1992: evidence of aggressive loan policies John S. Jordan The New England banking industry experienced serious problems between 1989 and 1992. As the region’s economy deteriorated, banks failed at an unprecedented rate and many others barely survived. But even though banking problems were widespread, they were not […]
Margin Requirements, Margin Loans, and Margin Rates: Practice and Principles – analysis of history of margin credit regulations – Statistical Data Included Peter Fortune ********** The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System establishes initial margin requirements under Regulations T, U, and X. Regulation T applies to broker-dealers, Regulation U applies to banks and […]