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Report
Africa—Missing Globalization's Rewards?
Globalization increases integration of world economies through trade, financial ties, information exchange, technology and the movement of people. The rising importance of world trade and capital flows reflects enhanced economic and financial linkages. Nations with superior access to world markets can more fully exploit their competitive advantages, opening their economies to international competition. With greater capital flows and freedom of capital movement, resources more effectively move to their most productive locations, contributing to rising living standards.
Working Paper
The Heterogeneous Effects of Global and National Business Cycles on Employment in U.S. States and Metropolitan Areas
The growth of globalization in recent decades has increased the importance of external factors as drivers of the business cycle in many countries. Globalization affects countries not just at the macro level but at the level of states and metro areas as well. This paper isolates the relative importance of global, national and region-specific shocks as drivers of the business cycle in individual U.S. states and metro areas. We document significant heterogeneity in the sensitivity of states and metro areas to global shocks, and show that direct trade linkages are not the only channel through ...
Journal Article
China's sputtering housing boom poses broad economic challenge
China?s economic slowdown and changing demographics cloud its housing market?s long-term prospects. While urbanization and a lack of alternative investment opportunities provide short-run support, the housing sector?s difficulties imperil China?s financial sector and the global recovery.
Journal Article
A historical look at the labor market during recessions
Turmoil in housing, credit and financial markets plunged the U.S. economy into a recession that has taken a heavy toll on the labor market. The weakness that began during the second half of 2007 gravely worsened during a period of extreme financial stress in 2008, and the labor market has yet to recover. To put the recession's labor-market impact into perspective, we compare the past two years to previous downturns, including the Great Depression. We also examine the data commonly used to assess labor market conditions. While unemployment rates and nonfarm payroll losses are widely reported, ...
Report
Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe
One hundred trillion dollars?that?s100,000,000,000,000?is the largest denomination of currency ever issued.1 The Zimbabwean government issued the Z$100 trillion bill in early 2009, among the last in a series of ever higher denominations distributed as inflation eroded purchasing power. When Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980, Z$2, Z$5, Z$10 and Z$20 denominations circulated, replaced three decades later by bills in the thousands and ultimately in the millions and trillions as the government sought to prop up a weakening economy amid spiraling inflation.
Journal Article
Global and National Shocks Explain A Large Share of State Job Growth
Global and U.S. national shocks on average appear to equally explain more than half of the fluctuations in state employment growth, an important measure of assessing real economic activity. The overall assessment, however, conceals a wide variation among states.
Report
Oil-Rich Venezuela Tips Toward Hyperinflation
Venezuela, once the wealthiest nation in Latin America, is suffering a dramatic reversal of fortunes and the worst economic crisis in its history. Though the nation has crude oil reserves of close to 300 billion barrels?the world?s largest such holdings?many Venezuelans go without the most basic goods in an economy plagued by chronic shortages.
Journal Article
Texas maintains top exporter standing while its trade remains concentrated
While Texas has become the nation?s top exporting state, benefiting from trade of intermediate goods to Mexico and a global presence as an energy hub, its export activity remains concentrated relative to the U.S. and other states.
Working Paper
Diversification and specialization of U.S. states
This paper documents the evolution of the international relationships of individual U.S. states along three dimensions: trade, migration, and finance. We examine how specialized or diversified state economies differ in terms of the products they export and with whom they trade, the origins of the immigrants who live in the state, and the origins of the foreign banks operating in the state. We show that states that are diversified along one of these dimensions are often quite specialized along others. New York is?perhaps, not surprisingly?the most diversified state in terms of global linkages.
Journal Article
Cheaper crude oil affects consumer prices unevenly
The recent crude oil price decline is reflected in lower pump prices for gasoline. Other consumer prices are also affected, but the impact and the speed of transmission vary considerably.