Economics

In the latest BIS Quarterly Review, researchers Ryan Banerjee and Boris Hofmann consolidated some of the earlier research to illustrate the problem of zombie firms. They argued that the rise of zombies predated the 2008 financial crisis, and has since been dragging down the productivity of the real economy.

Or, to frame the question in a more technical way: is tipflation even counted as part of Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation?

The faster the credit growth, the worse it is for real growth (output per worker). This is what Stephen G. Cecchetti and Enisse Kharroubi want to explain in their NBER working paper "Why Does Credit Growth Crowd Out Real Economic Growth?"

An important question is how do we get the series IDs for the data you need. The short answer is through BLS's Data Finder

Jeremy Stein, former Federal Reserve governor, talks to us about his recent research “The Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet as a Financial-Stability Tool” and why the Fed should maintain a sizeable balance sheet.

The Federal Reserve is expected to cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points this week. This has been the baseline market assumption since Chairman Jerome Powell's speech at Jackson Hole, in which he proclaimed, “the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance." The question is, how many dissenting votes will Powell face in this meeting?

This week, the trio who was directly responsible for the decision to let Lehman fail – Bernanke, Tim Geithner (then New York Fed President), and Hank Paulson (then Treasury Secretary) – joined together at a panel held by Brookings Institution and spoke about the lessons they had learned from the crisis.

In recent months, the Global Economic Policy Uncertainty index has risen to a level much higher than periods around the 911 Terrorist Attack or the 2008 Financial Crisis, hence the conclusion that the economic policy is unprecedently uncertain now. But here is why you might not have to worry.

This is the second installment of our interview series "Where is the General Theory of the 21st Century?". In this second installment, we continue...

The latest SESFOD shows that the credit terms offered to counterparties for both securities financing and OTC derivative transactions is further tightened.