Search Results
Showing results 1 to 10 of approximately 28.
(refine search)
Journal Article
Global Supply Chain Disruptions Can Be Seen Anywhere, but Their Costs Are Not the Same Everywhere
Although ubiquitous, supply chain challenges are exerting more cost pressures on the types of businessesconcentrated in the Tenth Federal Reserve District. Businesses in the region are less willing or able to adjustthe amount of imported goods they purchase even when procurement prices rise precipitously, as they have over the past year.
Discussion Paper
Do Economic Crises in Europe Affect the U.S.? Some Lessons from the Past Three Decades
In this post we summarize the main results of our contribution to a recent e-book, “The Making of the European Monetary Union: 30 years since the ERM crisis,” on the economic and financial crises in Europe since 1992-93, and focus on the spillovers of those crises onto the United States and the global economy. We find that the answer to the question in the title of this post is a (moderate) yes.
Discussion Paper
A Closer Look at Chinese Overseas Lending
While considerable attention has focused on China’s credit boom and the rise of China’s domestic debt levels, another important development in international finance has been growth in China’s lending abroad. In this post, we summarize what is known about the size and scope of China’s external lending, discuss the incentives that drove this lending, and consider some of the challenges these exposures pose for Chinese lenders and foreign borrowers.
Discussion Paper
What Is behind the Global Jump in Personal Saving during the Pandemic?
Household saving has soared in the United States and other high-income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite widespread declines in wages and other private income streams. This post highlights the role of fiscal policy in driving the saving boom, through stepped-up social benefits and other income support measures. Indeed, in the United States, Japan, and Canada, government assistance has pushed household income above its pre-pandemic trajectory. We argue that the larger scale of government assistance in these countries helps explain why saving in these countries has risen more ...
Discussion Paper
What Happened to the U.S. Deficit with China during the U.S.-China Trade Conflict?
The United States’ trade deficit with China narrowed significantly following the imposition of additional tariffs on imports from China in multiple waves beginning in 2018—or at least it did based on U.S. trade data. Chinese data tell a much different story, with the bilateral deficit rising nearly to historical highs at the end of 2020. What’s going on here? We find that (as also discussed in a related note) much of the decline in the deficit recorded in U.S. data was driven by successful efforts to evade U.S. tariffs, with an estimated $10 billion loss in tariff revenues in 2020.
Discussion Paper
High Import Prices along the Global Supply Chain Feed Through to U.S. Domestic Prices
The prices of U.S. imported goods, excluding fuel, have increased by 6 percent since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020. Around half of this increase is due to the substantial rise in the prices of imported industrial supplies, up nearly 30 percent. In this post, we consider the implications of the increase in import prices on U.S. industry inflation rates. In particular, we highlight how rising prices of imported intermediate inputs, like industrial supplies, can have amplified effects through the U.S. economy by increasing the production cost of goods that rely heavily on ...
Discussion Paper
What Happens to U.S. Activity and Inflation if China’s Property Sector Leads to a Crisis?
A previous post explored the potential implications for U.S. growth and inflation of a manufacturing-led boom in China. This post considers spillovers to the U.S. from a downside scenario, one in which China’s ongoing property sector slump takes another leg down and precipitates an economic hard landing and financial crisis.
Discussion Paper
What if China Manufactures a Sugar High?
While the slump in China’s property sector has been steep, Chinese policymakers have responded to the falloff in property activity with policies designed to spur activity in the manufacturing sector. The apparent hope is that a pivot toward production-intensive growth can help lift the Chinese economy out of its current doldrums, which include weak household demand, high levels of debt, and demographic and political headwinds to growth. In a series of posts, we consider the implications of two alternative Chinese policy scenarios for the risks to the U.S. outlook for real activity and ...
Discussion Paper
What if China Manufactures a Sugar High?
While the slump in China’s property sector has been steep, Chinese policymakers have responded to the falloff in property activity with policies designed to spur activity in the manufacturing sector. The apparent hope is that a pivot toward production-intensive growth can help lift the Chinese economy out of its current doldrums, which include weak household demand, high levels of debt, and demographic and political headwinds to growth. In a series of posts, we consider the implications of two alternative Chinese policy scenarios for the risks to the U.S. outlook for real activity and ...
Discussion Paper
Can Electric Cars Power China’s Growth?
China’s aggressive policies to develop its battery-powered electric vehicle (BEV) industry have been successful in making the country the dominant producer of these vehicles worldwide. Going forward, BEVs will likely claim a growing share of global motor vehicle sales, helped along by subsides and mandates implemented in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. Nevertheless, China’s success in selling BEVs may not contribute much to its GDP growth, owing both to the maturity of its motor vehicle sector and the strong tendency for countries to protect this high-profile industry.