Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

About: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is a other organization based out in Dallas, Texas, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Monetary policy & Inflation. The organization has 196 authors who have published 994 publications receiving 35508 citations.

A new monthly index of the Texas business cycle

Abstract: The timing, length and severity of economic recessions and expansions in a state are important to businesses seeking to set up operations or expand in those areas. Given a limited amount of data at the state level and their sometimes inconsistent movements, it is not straight forward to define a state business cycle. In this article I attempt to measure the Texas business cycle using a technique developed by Stock and Watson (1989,1991) that statistically estimates the underlying comovement in broad indicators of the state’s economy. The new Texas Coincident Index (TCI) is constructed with the Texas unemployment rate, a quarterly Real Gross State Product measure due to Berger and Phillips (1995), and a nonfarm employment series that is benchmarked quarterly and is seasonally adjusted using the two-step approach described in Berger and Phillips (1993). Use of these components and the Kalman filter, which smoothes across variables as well as over time, results in an index which is much smoother and gives clearer signals of turning points than the old TCI produced by Phillips (1988). The new TCI exhibits cyclical patterns that are highly correlated with those of employment and RGSP, and matches well with recessions and expansions that were independently identified.

Measuring Real Activity Using a Weekly Economic Index

Abstract: This paper describes a weekly economic index (WEI) developed to track the rapid economic developments associated with the onset of and policy response to the novel coronavirus in the United States. The WEI is a weekly composite index of real economic activity, with eight of 10 series available the Thursday after the end of the reference week. In addition to being a weekly real activity index, the WEI has strong predictive power for output measures and provided an accurate nowcast of current-quarter GDP growth in the first half of 2020, with weaker performance in the second half. We document how the WEI responded to key events and data releases during the first 10 months of the pandemic.

Argentina's Feeble Recovery: Insights from a Real Business Cycle Approach

Abstract: Argentina’s GDP increased 30% between 2002 and 2005, prompting optimistic assessments that the country had finally left behind its secular stagnation. However, this strong performance followed a sharp decline in economic activity and therefore could be the manifestation of a bounce‐back effect with no lasting impact on Argentina’s mediocre long‐term growth rates. The paper examines this conjecture with the quantitative discipline imposed by a Real Business Cycle methodology and concludes that the 2002–05 expansion was not only a rebound, but also considerably weaker than the model predicts, a finding not consistent with upbeat views about the country’s long‐term prospects.

An Analysis of the Neighborhood Impacts of the Mortgage Assistance Program in Dallas

Abstract: Down-payment or closing cost assistance is a commonly used and effective program in addressing the wealth constraints of underserved homebuyers. This paper estimates the impact of the city of Dallas Mortgage Assistance Program (MAP) on neighborhood home values. We define neighborhoods for each sale based on distance from MAP properties, and estimate the difference-in- difference (DID) in home prices between neighborhoods with various numbers of MAP before and after MAP sales. We find that while MAP properties tend to locate in neighborhoods with generally lower property values, the infusion of MAP has no detrimental impact on neighboring property values overall.