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Journal Article
Fluctuating fortunes and Hawaiian house prices
Real estate prices in a local market can be driven by an identifiable group of purchasers. In Hawaii, residents of both the U.S. mainland and Japan have been significant purchasers of homes. An analysis suggests that house prices in Hawaii were driven primarily by purchasers from the U.S. mainland for most of the 1975?2008 period. But, during Japan?s ?bubble economy? in the late 1980s and immediately thereafter, house prices in Hawaii were driven primarily by demand from Japan.
Conference Paper
Bank credit and economic activity
Journal Article
Economies of scale and continuing consolidation of credit unions
This Economic Letter shows that, in contrast to banks, larger credit unions, on average, have decidedly lower average costs and higher net incomes, as we might expect in the presence of important economies of scale. It further notes that these economies of scale put pressure on the credit union industry to continue consolidating into fewer, larger credit unions. It also describes how some recent legislation may have further added to the pressures on both the banking and credit union industries to consolidate.
Journal Article
Performance divergence of large and small credit unions
By various measures, larger credit unions have recently had stronger financial performance than smaller credit unions, indicating that these institutions face large and pervasive economies of scale. This Economic Letter uses data from the 1980-2004 period to show that this performance difference is a long-running state of affairs. Moreover, these data reveal increasing performance divergence over this period--that is, a widening in the gap in financial performance between large and small credit unions. Thus, it is not surprising that the number of smaller institutions has been shrinking, ...
Journal Article
Credit union failures and insurance fund losses: 1971-2004
Over the past few decades, assets in the credit union industry have grown considerably and have grown relative to banking. As with banking, the credit union industry has experienced considerable structural change that, in part, involved failures. While the data on failures in the banking industry have been analyzed at length, the same has not been true for credit unions, so far. ; This Economic Letter presents newly produced data on losses in the federal insurance program for credit union shares and on the rates at which federally insured credit unions (FICUs) failed. (Shares in credit unions ...
Journal Article
OPEC, inflation, and monetary policy
Journal Article
Constructing the Home Purchase Sentiment Index
Consumer attitudes about buying and selling homes can inform us about future housing and mortgage markets. The Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) summarizes data from the National Housing Survey on consumers? conditions, attitudes, and intentions about housing. The HPSI shows promise both as a stand-alone indicator and as a supplement for evaluating and forecasting housing and mortgage markets. Analysis reveals the index accurately projected strong home sales in 2014 and 2015 and a weaker outlook toward the end of 2016, following the sharp rise in mortgage interest rates.
Journal Article
Securitization and small business
Small businesses have relied considerably on securitized markets for credit. The recent financial crisis led to a virtual cessation of securitization of some of the loans used by small businesses, such as commercial real estate mortgages, vehicle, and credit card loans. In addition, values of commercial and residential real estate, which small businesses often use as collateral for loans, dropped dramatically. As a consequence, small businesses may have experienced tighter credit conditions than larger businesses, which rely relatively less on those categories of loans and collateral.
Journal Article
Consumer sentiment and consumer spending
This Economic Letter reviews research on whether measures of consumer attitudes improve forecasts of consumer spending.