United States
Debt discharge no guarantee for a clean start
Debt discharges fail to generate a fresh start as intended by the law, new research from the Federal Reserve Board posits.
Policy rates should fall to -5%: SF Fed's Rudebush
The federal funds target would have to fall to -5% for the benchmark rate to be in line with the central bank's Taylor rule, a senior San Francisco Fed official has said.
St Louis Federal Reserve - Annual Report 2008
The current financial crisis has highlighted that certain activities are best performed by the public sector, said James Bullard, the president of the St Louis Federal Reserve, in the central bank's latest Annual Report.
SARB's Mboweni: flight to quality ironic
Tito Mboweni, the governor of the South African Reserve Bank, said it was ironic that capital was now flowing back to the United States, the source of the current crisis.
Foreclosure policy should focus on unemployed
Foreclosure-reduction policy should focus on helping people who lose their jobs, new research from the Atlanta Federal Reserve suggests.
Unified regulatory architecture needed in the US
An influential group of academics, former government officials and business leaders has called for an overhaul of the rules for supervising United States financial markets and stressed the need for a more integrated regulatory structure.
Kohn defends Fed lending against "fiscal" charges
The Federal Reserve's efforts to halt a financial meltdown with lending programmes targeted at specific markets should not be construed as fiscal aid, Don Kohn, the vice chairman of the central bank, has claimed.
Hoenig moots Fed for bigger payments role
A lack of competition, concerns over integrity and the existence of externalities in the payments sector justify a greater role for the Federal Reserve in the industry, Thomas Hoenig, the president of the Kansas City Fed, has said.
Fed's Rosengren bets on slow recovery
The unusual features of the current recession point to a slow recovery, Eric Rosengren, the president of the Boston Federal Reserve, has said.
Markets fear US ratings downgrade: Pimco's Gross
The co-head of the world's biggest bond fund has said that that markets are beginning to price in the threat of the United States losing its triple-A rating, which he believes will eventually go.
UK placed on negative watch on debt fears
Britain's much-cherished triple-A rating was under threat on Thursday after Standard & Poor's, one of the big three ratings agencies, placed the country on negative watch.
Greenspan: we're still on the edge
Alan Greenspan, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, has warned that American banks need to raise a lot more capital before the financial crisis can end.
Fed wants to stay silent on borrower details
The Federal Reserve will continue to resist calls by lawmakers to name and shame the recipients of central bank aid, Federal Open Market Committee minutes suggest.
Getting systemic risk regulation right: an agenda for the US
Robert Litan says systemic regulation can be done, and sets out who should do it in the United States – and how
US set for new regulator?
The United States administration is considering setting up a regulator to oversee certain financial products, it emerged on Wednesday.
Fed aids Treasury in toxic-asset removal
To support the Treasury's plan to rid banks of toxic assets, the Federal Reserve on Tuesday said that it will take some mortgage-backed securities on to its books from July.
Minneapolis Fed puts downturn in perspective
The Minneapolis Federal Reserve has produced a series of charts comparing the current recession with other downturns in the United States in the post-war period.
Income distribution impacts the economy
Movements in the distribution of income can have a significant impact on the macroeconomy, a new paper from the St Louis Federal Reserve posits.
Fed outsources in-house cheque images system
The Federal Reserve has decided to migrate its archive of cheque images to a private provider in an effort to reduce costs.
More payment systems caused cheque decline
The decline in cheque use occurred mainly via an increase in the number of payment instruments per consumer, a new paper from the Boston Federal Reserve reveals.
Stanford's Taylor warns of balance-sheet threat
John Taylor, a former Federal Reserve economist now a professor at Stanford, has told lawmakers that the expansion of the Fed's balance sheet risks exacerbating inflation.
An interpretation of the rise of inflation
A research paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research interprets the rise of inflation in the United States from the perspective of a simple macroeconomic framework.
Changing patterns of wealth and income in the US
The Federal Reserve has produced a paper examining the distribution of wealth and income and their joint properties, based on data from the 1989-2007 Surveys of Consumer Finance.
Obama administration unveils derivatives overhaul
The United States on Wednesday proposed a series of radical reforms to the derivatives industry.