Viewpoints

The Trump Administration has used a variety of changes in fiscal policies---business and consumer tax cuts, de-regulation, increase in defense and domestic discretionary spending and tariffs on selected foreign goods---to help spur [...]

The abrupt and sharp decline in equity prices in recent weeks has been largely pinned on the Federal Reserve as policymakers continue to move forward with their plan to raise official rates. Yet, the sell-off in the equity market is [...]

The state data suggest that September was a month of quite limited growth. According to BLS, only one state (Georgia) reported a statistically significant gain in jobs. Three states saw declines, though in two of these (the Carolinas) [...]

The sharp sell-off in equity prices is no reason for the Federal Reserve to abandon its plan to continue to raise official interest rates, but it does highlight the need for policymakers to offer better clarity, if not establish some [...]

Last Thursday BEA released its estimates of 2017 state-level consumer spending. These figures—only available at an annual frequency—are the only estimates of any state-level GDP expenditure category. In the release BEA highlights [...]

There's an old saying, "fool me once and shame on you; fool me twice shame on me". Yet, who's to blame when it happens a third time? Soaring equity prices along with continued increases in real estate prices in the third quarter have [...]

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's estimates of state coincident activity show that all states have grown over the last 12 months. As was noticed for the job numbers, there are some signs of convergence in growth over that [...]

A number of current and former of policymakers along with other public officials and analysts have started to debate whether the 2% inflation target is still a viable policy rule. The debate is long overdue, but the trouble with this [...]