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Journal Article
The Many Lives of Federal Job Training
Federal job training programs have long enjoyed bipartisan support. Yet their emphasis has varied greatly across the years. At times, they have been advocated primarily as a means of helping workers displaced by automation or international trade. At other times, the focus has been on creating opportunities for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. More recently, they have gained attention as a possible remedy for a perceived "skills mismatch" that many observers see reflected in record high job vacancy rates.
Journal Article
Features: Virginia's Data Centers and Economic Development
Data centers are essential to cloud computing and its ability to give users remote access to data, applications, and computing power over the internet. Yet they typically possess few of the ethereal qualities evoked by the term "cloud." With high concentrations in Northern Virginia's Fairfax and Loudoun counties, data centers are often housed in nondescript buildings whose stark forms resemble massive rectangular cubes. The buildings' interiors are packed with rows and rows of computer servers, vast quantities of cables and switches, and the considerable electrical power and HVAC hardware ...
Journal Article
Supply Chain Disruptions, Inflation, and the Fed
Used cars became a hot commodity during the pandemic, with their prices increasing by roughly 50 percent between January 2020 and December 2021. The spike in used car prices was a prominent example of how global supply chain disruptions have contributed to U.S. inflation. It also highlighted the complexity of global supply and demand relationships.
Briefing
Sovereign CDS Dealers as Market Stabilizers
Economists at the Richmond Fed analyze the role of dealer-provided liquidity in sovereign credit default swap markets. Using newly available data from the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, they track the positions held by large dealers during crises in Ukraine, Venezuela, and Argentina. The researchers find that large dealers tended to increase their provision of insurance as risk increased during those episodes — a finding that is consistent with the notion that they tend to act as market stabilizers during times of turmoil.
Journal Article
Protecting coastal communities: managing change
Careless coastal development is threatening a bulwark of New England?s economy and quality of life. The authors offer 30 years of research on techniques for permitting change without doing harm.
Journal Article
Economic History: Maggie Lena Walker
Maggie Lena Walker built the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank to last. When it opened its doors in Richmond's Jackson Ward district in 1903, Walker became the first Black woman to establish a bank in the United States. She would stand at its helm as president for nearly 30 years, safely steering it through periodic bouts of economic turmoil, eventually increasing its assets more than tenfold. To cap off her career, she would solidify the bank's long-term prospects by orchestrating mergers with two other banks during the depths of the Great Depression.
Briefing
Government Programs and Their Effects on Welfare and Employment: A Conference Recap
How did the expansion of unemployment benefits during the pandemic affect aggregate spending and job search? What are the short-term and long-term effects of federal minimum wage hikes? Why do the effects of public pension retrenchments depend on how they are phased in? These were among the questions addressed by economists during a recent research conference.
Journal Article
Fed Eyes Central Bank Digital Currency
Digital assets have been all the rage. Millions of Americans have invested in privately issued cryptocurrencies, whose market value surpassed $3 trillion for a while late last year. Further pushing the envelope of innovation and speculation, the prices of so-called "algorithmic" cryptocurrencies such as TerraUSD have been supported by yet other cryptocurrencies in arrangements that some observers have likened to Ponzi schemes. Meanwhile, collectors have spent billions of dollars to purchase pieces of art and other items in the form of digital "non-fungible tokens" or NFTs.
Journal Article
The Profession: Economics Is a Lucrative Major
The number of undergraduate economics majors has jumped during the past decade, from roughly 27,600 in 2009-2010 to about 35,000 in 2019-2020. Perhaps the economic rewards of the major are part of the reason why.