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COVID-19

  • Southwest Economy

    Texas multifamily housing yet to stabilize; downside risks remain

    A fair amount of excess supply remains in some markets, and new properties are facing longer lease-up timelines.

  • Southwest Economy

    Higher interest rates transform housing market, Texas real estate workforce

    A pandemic-era period of relatively low interest rates and rising house prices drew a record number of new real estate agents to the field. Home prices have since remained high, but elevated interest rates and slowing sales have made the industry less attractive.

  • Dallas Fed Economics

    Transfer payments, household savings play key roles in growing U.S. deficit

    While recent levels of government borrowing have been high, private savings by U.S. residents have been elevated as well. As a result, overall borrowing for the entire U.S economy has been remarkably stable.

  • Dallas Fed Economics

    Central bank swaps offer dollar crisis lifeline to non-U.S. banks

    Starting in late 2007, the Federal Reserve, in partnership with a few major foreign central banks, began offering central bank dollar liquidity swap lines as an important liquidity backstop.

  • Working Papers

    Pandemic and War Inflation: Lessons from the International Experience

    This paper examines the drivers of the 2020–23 inflation surge, with an emphasis on the similarities and differences across countries, as well as the role that monetary policy frameworks might have played in shaping central banks’ responses.

  • Southwest Economy

    Austin doctor who leads equity firm aims to cure U.S. health care

    Garheng Kong, a physician by training who founded Austin-based HealthQuest Capital in 2012, discusses his outlook for the industry and why his firm is based in Austin.

  • Dallas Fed Economics

    Bubble thought: What beliefs can reveal about housing market risks

    Survey-based forecast data on home price growth are a surer indicator of housing market exuberance than traditional valuation ratios, such as price-to-income or price-to-rent.

  • Working Papers

    Bubbling Up? What Consumer Expectations Reveal About U.S. Housing Market Exuberance

    This paper investigates the presence of speculative bubbles in the U.S. housing market after the global financial crisis. Unlike standard approaches that rely on observed economic fundamentals, the method used in this paper leverages subjective price expectations from the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers to test for exuberance without imposing a specific model of intrinsic housing values.

  • Dallas Fed Economics

    Job cyclicality provides timely signals on Texas, U.S. business cycle

    The cyclicality of industries and their behavior provide early indications of economic turning points in Texas and the U.S. and provide a timelier view than other data that are widely used to confirm downturns and expansions.

  • Working Papers

    Tempting FAIT: Flexible Average Inflation Targeting and the Post-COVID U.S. Inflation Surge

    In August 2020, the Federal Reserve replaced Flexible Inflation Targeting (FIT) with Flexible Average Inflation Targeting (FAIT), introducing make-up strategies that allow inflation to temporarily exceed the 2% target. Using a synthetic control approach, this paper estimates that FAIT raised CPI inflation by about 1 percentage point and core CPI inflation by 0.5 percentage points, suggesting a moderate impact net of food and energy and a largely temporary effect. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis of a steeper-than-expected post-pandemic Phillips curve in the New Keynesian model.