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Southwest Economy, Second Quarter 2020

Second Quarter 2020
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  • Small business hardships highlight relationship with lenders in COVID-19 era
    Wenhua Di, Nathaniel Pattison and Chloe Smith
    The COVID-19 crisis has disrupted normal small business operations and will likely limit the ability of many enterprises to stay financially afloat. Although lenders have become better equipped to evaluate risks and serve small businesses, the supply of credit tends to shrink during economic downturns.
  • COVID-19, oil price collapse, dimming outlook for banks in 2020
    Amy Chapel and Kory Killgo
    Eleventh District banks face challenges from instability in the energy sector and economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. While district banks finished 2019 on solid footing, and regulatory and monetary interventions will buffer some of the headwinds, we expect profitability, credit quality and bank capital to decline in 2020.
  • LiftFund’s microlending customers battle to survive COVID-19 shock
    On the record: A conversation with Janie Barrera
    Janie Barrera is the founding president and chief executive officer of San Antonio-based LiftFund. Created in 1994, LiftFund has one of the nation’s largest microlending portfolios. The nonprofit provides loans and management training to very small enterprises in Texas and seven other states.
  • Spotlight: Black workers at risk for 'last hired, first fired'
    Aquil Jones and Joseph Tracy
    The COVID–19-induced global economic downturn shuttered businesses that have begun slowly reopening and reassessing whether to recall laid-off employees. In the U.S., black unemployment rates have spiked much more than white jobless rates during recessions.
  • Go figure: COVID-19 tanks U.S. fuel consumption, prices
    Design: Olu Eseyin; Content: Jesse Thompson
    The effects of the pandemic, including working from home and reduced travel, dropped fuel consumption from mid-March to mid-April 2020.
  • President’s perspective
    Robert S. Kaplan

Southwest Economy is published quarterly by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System.

Articles may be reprinted on the condition that the source is credited to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Visit dallasfed.org/research/swe to read the full publication. The podcast is available at dallasfed.org/research/swe/podcast.