Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

About: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is a other organization based out in St Louis, Missouri, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Monetary policy & Inflation. The organization has 203 authors who have published 1650 publications receiving 46084 citations.

Does Government Spending Really Crowd Out Charitable Contributions? New Time Series Evidence

Abstract: We exploit the time series properties of charitable giving data to provide additional insights into the crowding out of charitable contributions in response to government spending We find that the short-run and long-run government spending and charitable giving relationships are quite different - the long run relationship appears to be largely spurious, and estimates of the short-run relationship provide only weak evidence of crowding out We also find that system estimation can improve upon the efficiency of single equation models used in previous works Our results support the prestige theory of charitable giving and the rational ignorance of citizens

A note on oil dependence and economic instability

Abstract: We show that dependence on foreign energy can increase economic instability by raising the likelihood of equilibrium indeterminacy, hence making it easier for fluctuations driven by self-fulfilling expectations to occur This is demonstrated in a standard neoclassical growth model Calibration exercises, based on the estimated share of imported energy in production for several countries, show that the degree of reliance on foreign energy for many countries can easily make an otherwise determinate and stable economy indeterminate and unstable

The Macroeconomics of Microfinance

Abstract: We provide a quantitative evaluation of the aggregate and distributional impact of microfinance or credit programs targeted toward small businesses We find that the redistributive impact of microfinance is stronger in general equilibrium than in partial equilibrium, but the impact on aggregate output and capital is smaller in general equilibrium Aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) increases with microfinance in general equilibrium but decreases in partial equilibrium When general equilibrium effects are accounted for, scaling up the microfinance program will have only a small impact on per-capita income, because the increase in TFP is counterbalanced by lower capital accumulation resulting from the redistribution of income from high-savers to low-savers Nevertheless, the vast majority of the population will be positively affected by microfinance through the increase in equilibrium wages

Inflation Targeting: Why it Works and How to Make it Work Better

Abstract: Inflation targeting has worked so well because it leads policymakers to debate, decide on, and communicate the inflation objective. In practice, this process has led the public to believe that the central bank has a long-term inflation objective. Inflation targeting has been successful, then, because the central bank decides on an objective and announces it, not because of a change in its day-to-day behavior in money markets or the way it reacts to news about unemployment or real GDP. By deciding on an inflation rate and announcing it, the central bank is providing information the public needs to concentrate expectations on a common trend. The central bank gains control indirectly by creating information that makes it more likely that people will price things in a way that is consistent with the central bank's goal. The way to improve inflation targeting is to be more explicit about the average inflation rate expected over all relevant horizons. Building a target path for the price level, growing at the desired inflation rate, is the best way to institutionalize a low-inflation environment. In a wide variety of economic models, a price-path target mitigates the zero lower bound problem, eliminates worries about deflation, and improves the central bank's ability to stabilize the real economy.