The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, (informally referred to as the Atlanta Fed and the Bank), is the sixth district of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks of the United States and is headquartered in midtown Atlanta, Georgia.The Atlanta Fed covers the U.S. states of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, the eastern two-thirds of Tennessee, the southern portion of Louisiana, and southern Mississippi as part of the Federal Reserve System. Along with its Atlanta headquarters, the Banks operates five branches with the sixth district, which are located in Birmingham, Jacksonville, Miami, Nashville, and New Orleans. These branches provide cash to banks, savings and loans, and other depository institutions; transfer money electronically; and clear millions of checks.In addition to supporting the U.S. financial system, the Atlanta Fed carries out the supervision and regulation of the banks operating within the sixth district. It also is a source of research and expertise for public and private decision makers within the district. In recent years, researchers within the Atlanta Fed have innovated new tools to gauge the health of the macro U.S. economy, the two most notable are GDPNow and Wage Growth Tracker.The Atlanta Fed is currently led by Dr. Raphael Bostic, who was appointed in 2017 and is member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the committee that makes key decisions about interest rates and the growth of the United States money supply.S.S.
Variations in the low-and high-frequency components of temperature may have distinct impacts on economic outcomes. Parametric and non-parametric estimates from three panels of data all find significant heterogeneity in the relative importance of the two components, but there is clear evidence in each panel of a common, slowly evolving low-frequency factor that is highly correlated with the low-frequency factor of economic activity. In regressions that quantify the output effects of the components, we find that one-way clustered standard errors often lead to size distortions, and that an additive fixed effect specification does not adequately control for common time effects. Using bootstrap inference to assess estimates from our preferred interactive fixed effect specification, we only find a marginally significant effect of the high-frequency component on growth in the U.S. panel. However, the effect of the low-frequency component is significant in the European and International panels, suggesting that the increase in the low-frequency temperature component over the post-1980 period is associated with a reduction in economic growth of approximately 1.3 percentage points. The findings are corroborated by time series estimation using data at the unit and national levels.
This paper studies the limiting behavior of the test for instrument exogeneity in linear models when there is uncertainty about the strength of the identification signal. We consider the test for conditional moment restrictions with an expanding set of constructed instruments. We establish the uniform validity of the standard normal asymptotic approximation, under the null, of this specification test over all possible degrees of model identification. As a result, this allows the researcher to use standard inference for testing instrument exogeneity without the need of any prior knowledge if the instruments are strong, semi-strong, weak or completely irrelevant. Furthermore, we show that the test is consistent regardless of the instrument strength; i.e., even in cases (weak and completely irrelevant instruments) where the standard tests fail to exhibit asymptotic power. To obtain these results, we characterize the rate of the estimator under a drifting sequence for the identification signal. We illustrate the appealing properties of the test in simulations and an empirical application.
The Worker Perspectives Report explores how workers are navigating rising costs, limited opportunities, and a challenging job market. Despite these obstacles, many remain hopeful, adapting their finances and career plans. They prioritize flexibility, work-life balance, and fair pay. Here's what workers are saying.
William Roberds of Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta reviews “The Silver Empire: How Germany Created Its First Common Currency” by Oliver Volckart. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Examines the creation of Germany's first common currency, focusing on insights from recently discovered primary sources that help explain the purpose of the currency and the importance of the uneven availability of precious metals.”
Natural disasters have been increasing in intensity while rental affordability has been declining in many cities. This article presents a new dataset at this intersection, merging rental outcomes with disaster incidence and government assistance. We construct two new panel models that estimate the effects of the natural disasters from 2000 to 2020 on zip codes across California and Florida. Results indicate that rents per unit increase by 0.2 to 1.3 percent immediately after a disaster and 6.5 to 12.5 percent in the long run. These findings are driven primarily by hurricanes and wildfires—and to a lesser extent, winter storms. The effects accumulate after multiple disasters. They are persistent and not mean-reverting. We further demonstrate that these impacts are moderated somewhat in communities receiving federal Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds, whose rental restrictions and rebuilding incentives temper post-disaster rent escalation. By centering this analysis, we highlight how disaster-recovery design influences long-term housing affordability and equity.
