Search Results
Journal Article
Banks' venture into real estate: high rollers, or lemmings?
During the 1980s, commercial banks expanded their mortgage lending more rapidly than other financial institutions. This article examines the factors responsible for the variations in commercial banks real estate lending, in an attempt to determine whether banks pursued real estate loans in a high-risk, high-return strategy, or simply were caught up in the general enthusiasm for real estate lending. ; The authors regression analysis provides some support for the argument that banks looked to real estate loans to bolster their financial performance. She also finds that in New England, where ...
Discussion Paper
Toward a more prosperous Springfield : a look at the barriers to employment from the perspective of residents and supporting organizations
Compared to the city, the region, and the state, labor force participation rates in Springfield's downtown and surrounding neighborhoods are very low. Residents and community leaders have expressed concerns about the employment prospects for the low-income residents that make up these neighborhoods. The purpose of this discussion paper is to highlight the perspectives of residents and community-based organizations on why so few residents of Springfield?s downtown neighborhoods are employed and to look at the some of the resources available to Springfield residents to help them address ...
Journal Article
New England approaches the 1990s
Journal Article
U.S economic performance: good fortune, bubble, or new era?
What accounts for the extraordinary performance of the U.S. economy in recent years? How is that we have been able to enjoy such strong economic growth and resulting low unemployment rates without an upturn in inflation? The author reviews the primary explanations offered for these unusually favorable circumstances - that the U.S. economy has been the beneficiary of temporary factors that have held down the inflation rate or that the U.S. economy has entered a new era of intensified competition and rising productivity growth in which inflation is less of a threat. She also discusses ...
Journal Article
Why do New Englanders work so much?
Because of the softening of the New England economy in the past two years, the availability of labor has become a less pressing issue for New England businesses. However, projections of slower growth in the working-age population in the 1990s, attributable to changes in the age structure, hold out the possibility of tight labor markets and difficulties finding suitable workers in the future. ; This article focuses on the fraction of the working-age population that chooses to work, called the participation rate, and its responsiveness to economic conditions. New England has had persistently ...
Discussion Paper
Small businesses in Springfield, Massachusetts: a look at Latino entrepreneurship
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has been collaborating with community leaders in Springfield, Massachusetts, on exploring revitalization strategies. Latino entrepreneurship is playing an important and increasing role in Springfield's economic development?providing new jobs and services and maintaining storefronts that might otherwise be vacant. An analyst in the Fed's community development unit, Ana Patricia Muoz, has recently completed a discussion paper on this topic, "Small Business in Springfield, Massachusetts: A Look at Latino Entrepreneurship." Among the implications: if ...
Journal Article
The merger boom: an overview
Conference Paper
The merger boom: proceedings of a conference held October 1987
Journal Article
The evolution of monetary policy and the Federal Reserve System over the past thirty years: an overview
Over the past thirty years, the activities of the Federal Reserve System have undergone major change. Public interest and confidence in monetary policy have grown immensely. Low inflation has emerged, if not as the primary objective of monetary policy, at least as a more central focus than it was thirty years ago. The Federal Reserve System has also undergone changes. Reserve Banks now charge for many of their financial services, rather than providing them free to banks that are System members. Placed in competition with commercial banks in providing financial services, Reserve Banks have ...