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The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, as part of the Federal Reserve System, promotes price stability and sustainable growth in New England and the nation. In support of this function, the Bank’s economists advise Federal Reserve decision-makers on monetary policy and financial markets. They conduct innovative research to further our understanding of monetary policy, the national and regional economy, markets, and supervisory policy. Through presentations, papers, publications, conferences, and advisory activities, they share their insights and expertise with fellow professionals, policymakers, and the public at large. The Bank’s research activities are centered in a number of focused units: the Research Department, the New England Public Policy Center, the Research Center for Behavioral Economics, the Consumer Payments Research Center, and the Risk and Policy Analysis Unit of the Supervision, Regulation, and Credit Department.

Recent Papers and Publications

A Profile of the Mortgage Crisis in a Low-and-Moderate-Income Community
by Lynn Fisher, Lauren Lambie-Hanson, and Paul S. Willen
Public Policy Discussion Paper 10-6

New England Economic Indicators
Quarter 2, 2010

Reasonable People Did Disagree: Optimism and Pessimism About the U.S. Housing Market Before the Crash
by Kristopher S. Gerardi, Christopher L. Foote, and Paul S. Willen
Public Policy Discussion Paper 10-5

President's Report to the Board of Directors pdf
August 2010

$1.25 Trillion is Still Real Money: Some Facts About the Effects of the Federal Reserve’s Mortgage Market Investments
by Andreas Fuster and Paul S. Willen
Public Policy Discussion Paper 10-4

Research Review
Issue No. 13
Summary of research from January-June 2010

In Search of Real Rigidities
by Gita Gopinath and Oleg Itskhoki
Working Paper 10-9

Who Gains and Who Loses from Credit Card Payments? Theory and Calibrations
by Scott Schuh, Oz Shy, and Joanna Stavins
Public Policy Discussion Paper No. 10-3

Does Springfield Receive Its Fair Share of Municipal Aid? Implications for Aid Formula Reform in Massachusetts
by Bo Zhao with Marques Benton, Lynn Browne, Prabal Chakrabarti, DeAnna Green, Yolanda K. Kodrzycki, Ana Patricia Muñoz, and Richard Walker
NEPPC Working Paper 10-4

Population Aging and State Pensions in New England
by Richard Woodbury
NEPPC Research Report 10-1

Wage Setting Patterns and Monetary Policy: International Evidence
by Giovanni Olivei and Silvana Tenreyro
Working Paper 10-8

The Sensitivity of Long-Term Interest Rates to Economic News: Comment
by Michelle L. Barnes and N. Aaron Pancost
Working Paper 10-7

Moral Hazard, Peer Monitoring, and Microcredit: Field Experimental Evidence from Paraguay
by Jeffrey Carpenter and Tyler Williams
Working Paper 10-6

Public and Private Values
by Dan Ariely, Anat Bracha, and Jean-Paul L’Huillier
Working Paper 10-5

The Role of Expectations and Output in the Inflation Process: An Empirical Assessment
by Jeffrey C. Fuhrer and Giovanni P. Olivei
Public Policy Brief 10-2

The Asymmetric Effects of Tariffs on Intra-Firm Trade and Offshoring Decisions
by Federico J. Díez
Working Paper No 10-4

The Housing Bust and Housing Affordability
by Robert Clifford
NEPPC Discussion Paper No. 10-1

Unaffordable Housing and Local Employment Growth
by Ritashree Chakrabarti and Junfu Zhang
NEPPC Working Paper 10-3

New England Economic Indicators
Q1 2010

Mobile Payments in the United States at Retail Point of Sale: Current Market and Future Prospects
by Marianne Crowe, Marc Rysman, and Joanna Stavins
Public Policy Discussion Paper 10-2

How Effective Were the Federal Reserve Emergency Liquidity Facilities? Evidence from the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility
by Burcu Duygan-Bump, Patrick M. Parkinson, Eric S. Rosengren, Gustavo A. Suarez, Paul S. Willen
QAU Working Paper 10-3

A Short Survey of Network Economics
by Oz Shy
Working Paper 10-3

What Explains Differences in Foreclosure Rates? A Response to Piskorski, Seru, and Vig
by Manuel Adelino, Kristopher Gerardi, and Paul S. Willen
Working Paper 10-2

Optimal Portfolio Choice with Predictability in House Prices and Transaction Costs
by Stefano Corradin, José L. Fillat, and Carles Vergara-Alert
QAU Working Paper 10-2

Insuring Consumption Using Income-Linked Assets
by Andreas Fuster and Paul S. Willen
Working Paper 10-1

Did Easy Credit Lead to Overspending? Home Equity Borrowing and Household Behavior in the Early 2000s
by Daniel Cooper
Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-7

Person-to-Person Electronic Funds Transfers: Recent Developments and Policy Issues
by Oz Shy
Public Policy Discussion Paper 10-1

Evaluating Business Tax Credits: Reading Between the Lines
by Jennifer Weiner
NEPPC Public Policy Brief 10-1

State Government Budgets and the Recovery Act
by Katharine Bradbury
Public Policy Brief 10-1

The Fiscal Impact of Potential Local Option Taxes in Massachusetts
by Bo Zhao
NEPPC Working Paper 10-2

Fair Value Accounting: Villain or Innocent Victim? Exploring the Links Between Fair Value Accounting, Bank Regulatory Capital, and the Recent Financial Crisis
by Sanders Shaffer
QAU Working Paper 10-1

Policymaking Insights from Behavioral Economics
Book based on Boston Fed's 2007 conference "Implications of Behavioral Economics for Economic Policy"

Spatial Competition and Cross-Border Shopping
by Brian Knight, Brown University and NEPPC Visiting Scholar and Nathan Schiff, University of Bristish Columbia
NEPPC Working Paper 10-1

Jobs in Springfield, Massachusetts: Understanding and Remedying the Causes of Low Resident Employment Rates
by Yolanda K. Kodrzycki and Ana Patricia Muñoz with Lynn Browne, DeAnna Green, Marques Benton, Prabal Chakrabarti, Richard Walker, and Bo Zhao
Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-11

Seeds to Succeed: Sequential Giving to Public Projects
by Anat Bracha, Michael Menietti, and Lise Vesterlund
Working Paper 09-21

State-Dependent Pricing and Optimal Monetary Policy
by Denny Lie
Working Paper 09-20

The 2008 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice
by Kevin Foster, Erik Meijer, Scott Schuh, and Michael A. Zabek
Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-10

Productivity, Welfare, and Reallocation: Theory and Firm-Level Evidence
by Susanto Basu, Luigi Pascali, Fabio Schiantarelli, and Luis Serven
Working Paper 09-19

The Valuation Channel of External Adjustment
by Fabio Ghironi, Jaewoo Lee, and Alessandro Rebucci
Working Paper 09-18

Multiple Selves in Intertemporal Choice
by Julian Jamison and Jon Wegener
Working Paper 09-17

Estimating Demand in Search Markets: The Case of Online Hotel Bookings
by Sergei Koulayev
Working Paper 09-16

Closed-Form Estimates of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve with Time-Varying Trend Inflation
by Michelle L. Barnes, Fabià Gumbau-Brisa, Denny Lie, and Giovanni P. Olivei
Working Paper 09-15

State Business Tax Incentives: Examining Evidence of their Effectiveness
by Jennifer Weiner
NEPPC Discussion Paper 09-3

Inflation Persistence
by Jeffrey C. Fuhrer
Working Paper 09-14

Impending U.S. Spending Bust? The Role of Housing Wealth as Borrowing Collateral
by Daniel Cooper
Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-9

Financial Leverage, Corporate Investment, and Stock Returns
by Ali K. Ozdagli
Working Paper 09-13

Housing and Debt Over the Life Cycle and Over the Business Cycle
by Matteo Iacoviello and Marina Pavan
Working Paper 09-12

TIPS Scorecard: Are TIPS Accomplishing What They Were Supposed to Accomplish? Can They Be Improved?
by Michelle L. Barnes, Zvi Bodie, Robert K. Triest, and J. Christina Wang
Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-8

The Struggle for Tax Reform in Maine, 2003-2009
by Richard Woodbury
NEPPC Discussion Paper 09-2

Reinvigorating Springfield’s Economy: Lessons from Resurgent Cities
by Yolanda K. Kodrzycki and Ana Patricia Muñoz
with Lynn Browne, DeAnna Green, Marques Benton, Prabal Chakrabarti, David Plasse, Richard Walker, and Bo Zhao
Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-6

Social and Private Learning with Endogenous Decision Timing
by Julian Jamison, David Owens, and Glenn Woroch
Working Paper 09-11

Securitization and Moral Hazard: Evidence from a Lender Cutoff Rule
by Ryan Bubb and Alex Kaufman
Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-5

Estimating the Border Effect: Some New Evidence
by Gita Gopinath, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Chang-Tai Hsieh, and Nicholas Li
Working Paper 09-10

Efficient Organization of Production: Nested versus Horizontal Outsourcing
by Oz Shy and Rune Stenbacka
Working Paper 09-9

Real Estate Brokers and Commission: Theory and Calibrations
by Oz Shy
Working Paper 09-8

Your House or Your Credit Card, Which Would You Choose? Personal Delinquency Tradeoffs and Precautionary Liquidity Motives
by Ethan Cohen-Cole and Jonathan Morse
QAU Working Paper 09-5

Trends in U.S. Family Income Mobility, 1967–2004
by Katharine Bradbury and Jane Katz
Working Paper 09-7

Why Don't Lenders Renegotiate More Home Mortgages? Redefaults, Self-Cures, and Securitization
by Manuel Adelino, Kristopher Gerardi, and Paul S. Willen
Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-4

The Role of the Housing Market in the Migration Response to Employment Shocks
by Jeffrey Zabel
NEPPC Working Paper 09-2

A Proposal to Help Distressed Homeowners: A Government Payment-Sharing Plan
by Chris Foote, Jeff Fuhrer, Eileen Mauskopf, and Paul Willen
Public Policy Brief 09-1

Voting with Their Feet? Local Economic Conditions and Migration Patterns in New England
by Alicia Sasser
NEPPC Working Paper 09-1

Reviving Mortgage Securitization: Lessons from the Brady Plan and Duration Analysis
by Fabià Gumbau-Brisa and Catherine L. Mann
Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-3

The Optimal Level of Deposit Insurance Coverage
by Michael Manz
Working Paper 09-6

A Question of Liquidity: The Great Banking Run of 2008?
by Judit Montoriol-Garriga and Evan Sekeris
QAU Working Paper 09-4

Market Proxies, Correlation, and Relative Mean-Variance Efficiency: Still Living with the Roll Critique
by Todd Prono
QAU Working Paper 09-3

Geographic Variations in a Model of Physician Treatment Choice with Social Interactions
by Mary A. Burke, Gary M. Fournier, and Kislaya Prasad
Working Paper 09-5

Empirical Estimates of Changing Inflation Dynamics
by Jeff Fuhrer, Giovanni Olivei, and Geoffrey M. B. Tootell
Working Paper 09-4

Revenue Forecasting Processes in New England
by Yael Shavit
NEPPC Brief 09-4

Towards a More Prosperous Springfield, Massachusetts: Project Introduction and Motivation pdf
by Lynn Browne, DeAnna Green, with Marques Benton, Prabal Chakrabarti, Yolanda Kodrzycki, Ana Patricia Muñoz, David Plasse, Richard Walker
Public & Community Affairs Discussion Paper 09-1

Employing the Region's Assets: Baby Boomers Meeting New England's Skilled Workforce Needs
by Heather Brome and Sandra Hackman
NEPPC Conference Report 08-1

Has Overweight Become the New Normal? Evidence of a Generational Shift in Body Weight Norms
by Mary A. Burke, Frank Heiland, and Carl Nadler
Working Paper 09-3

Forgive and Forget: Who Gets Credit after Bankruptcy and Why?
by Ethan Cohen-Cole, Burcu Duygan-Bump, and Judit Montoriol-Garriga
QAU Working Paper 09-2

Reducing Foreclosures
by Christopher L. Foote, Kristopher S. Gerardi, Lorenz Goette, and Paul S. Willen
Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-2

Lasting Connections: Using Internships to Retain Recent College Graduates in New England
by Alicia Sasser
NEPPC Policy Brief 09-3

The Option Value of Consumer Bankruptcy
by Ethan Cohen-Cole
QAU Working Paper 09-1

Another Hidden Cost of Incentives: The Detrimental Effect on Norm Enforcement
by Andreas Fuster and Stephan Meier
Working Paper 09-2

Why Are (Some) Consumers (Finally) Writing Fewer Checks? The Role of Payment Characteristics
by Scott Schuh and Joanna Stavins
Working Paper 09-1

Making Sense of the Subprime Crisis
by Kristopher S. Gerardi, Andreas Lehnert, Shane M. Sherlund, and Paul S. Willen
Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-1

Retention of Recent College Graduates in New England
by Alicia Sasser
NEPPC Policy Brief 09-2

The Supply of Recent College Graduates in New England
by Alicia Sasser
NEPPC Policy Brief 09-1

Subprime Mortgages, Foreclosures, and Urban Neighborhoods
by Kristopher S. Gerardi and Paul S. Willen
Public Policy Discussion Paper 08-6

Race, Obesity, and the Puzzle of Gender Specificity
by Mary A. Burke and Frank Heiland
Working Paper 08-8

The Balance Sheet Channel
by Ethan Cohen-Cole and Enrique Martinez-Garcia
QAU Working Paper 08-7

Household Bankruptcy Decision: The Role of Social Stigma vs. Information Sharing
by Ethan Cohen-Cole and Burcu Duygan-Bump
QAU Working Paper 08-6

The Responsiveness of Married Women's Labor Force Participation to Income and Wages: Recent Changes and Possible Explanations
by Katharine Bradbury and Jane Katz
Working Paper 08-7

A Portrait of New England's Immigrants
by Antoniya Owens
NEPPC Research Report 08-2

Global Imbalances and the Evolving World Economy
Book based on the Bank's 51st economic conference

Looking Behind the Aggregates: A Reply to “Facts and Myths about the Financial Crisis of 2008”
by Ethan Cohen-Cole, Burcu Duygan-Bump, José Fillat, and Judit Montoriol-Garriga
Working Paper QAU08-5

Summary of the Workshop on Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice
by Scott Schuh and Joanna Stavins
Public Policy Discussion Paper 08-5

Inflation Targeting—Central Bank Practice Overseas
by Jane Sneddon Little and Teresa Foy Romano
Public Policy Brief B08-1

The Impact of Immigration on Occupational Wages: Evidence from Britain
by Stephen Nickell and Jumana Saleheen
Working Paper 08-
6

Labor Supply in the New Century
Book based on the Boston Fed's 52nd economic conference

The Future of the Skilled Labor Force in New England: The Supply of Recent College Graduates
by Alicia Sasser
NEPPC Research Report 08-1

GARCH-Based Identification and Estimation of Triangular Systems
by Todd Prono
Working Paper QAU08-4

Classroom Peer Effects and Student Achievement
by Mary A. Burke and Tim R. Sass
Working Paper 08-5

Understanding Inflation and the Implications for Monetary Policy: A Phillips Curve Retrospective
Papers and presentations from the Boston Fed's 53rd economic conference

Public-Private Partnerships, Cooperative Agreements, and the Production of Public Services in Small and Rural Municipalities
by Robert D. Mohr, Steven Deller, and John Halstead
NEPPC Working Paper 08-4

Financing Municipalities in New England:
Revisiting the State-Local Relationship
pdf
by Robert Clifford
New England Public Policy Center Conference Report 07-1

The Value of Risk: Measuring the Service Output of U.S. Commercial Banks
by Susanto Basu, Robert Inklaar, and J. Christina Wang
Working Paper 08-4

Blood Donations and Incentives: Evidence from a Field Experiment
by Lorenz Goette and Alois Stutzer
Working Paper 08-3

A New Approach to Raising Social Security’s Earliest Eligibility Age
by Kelly Haverstick, Margarita Sapozhnikov, Robert K. Triest, and Natalia Zhivan
Public Policy Discussion Paper 08-4

The Lengthening of Childhood
by David Deming and Susan Dynarski
Public Policy Discussion Paper 08-3

Negative Equity and Foreclosure: Theory and Evidence
by Christopher L. Foote, Kristopher Gerardi, and Paul S. Willen
Working Paper NEPPC08-3

Subprime Facts: What (We Think) We Know about the Subprime Crisis and What We Don’t
by Christopher L. Foote, Kristopher Gerardi, Lorenz Goette, and Paul S. Willen
Public Policy Discussion Paper 08-2

Credit Card Debt and Payment Use
by Charles Sprenger and Joanna Stavins
Working Paper 08-2

Household Debt Repayment Behaviour: What Role Do Institutions Play?
by Burcu Duygan-Bump and Charles Grant
QAU Working Paper 08-3

Designing State Aid Formulas: The Case of a New Formula for Distributing Municipal Aid in Massachusetts
by Bo Zhao and Katharine Bradbury
Working Paper 08-1 / NEPPC 08-2

Is Obesity Contagious? Social Networks vs. Environmental Factors in the Obesity Epidemic
by Ethan Cohen-Cole and Jason M. Fletcher
QAU Working Paper 08-2

Why Does Unemployment Hurt the Employed? Evidence from the Life Satisfaction Gap between the Public and Private Sectors
by Simon Luechinger, Stephan Meier, and Alois Stutzer
Public Policy Discussion Paper 08-1

Credit Card Redlining
by Ethan Cohen-Cole
QAU Working Paper 08-1

The Dynamic between Municipal Revenue Sources and the State-Local Relationship in New England
by Richard F. Dye
NEPPC Working Paper 08-1

Can Young Professionals Afford to Buy a Home in New England? pdf
New England Public Policy Center Policy Brief 08-1

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Foreclosures, House-Price Changes, and Subprime Mortgages in MA
(Updated with data through 2009)

U.S. Family Income Mobility and Inequality, 1994 to 2004

 

Research News and Events

New England State Pension Reform – Responding to Demographic and Fiscal Challenges
June 30, 2010

Oil and the Macroeconomy in a Changing World
June 9, 2010

Understanding the Housing Collapse: What is to Blame and What Can Be Done?
Co-sponsored by the Harvard Kennedy School's Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston
May 5, 2010

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