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Articles by Kurt G. Lunsford
An Empirical Evaluation of Some Long-Horizon Macroeconomic Forecasts
We are grateful to two anonymous referees, an Associate Editor, conference and seminar participants at the 2024 NBER-NSF Time Series Conference, the Federal Reserve Banks of Cleveland and New York, the Bank of England, the 2023 International Symposium on Forecasting, and the University of East Anglia. West thanks the US Social Security Administration (SSA) for financial support from grant RDR18000003, funded as part of the Retirement and Disability Research Consortium.
Random Walk Forecasts of Stationary Processes Have Low Bias
We thank Todd Clark, James Mitchell, participants in a brownbag seminar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the editor, an associate editor and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. The views expressed herein are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Federal Reserve System.
Residual Seasonality in Five Measures of PCE Inflation
Introduction Policymakers and economists often calculate inflation as 12-month percent changes in the price index for personal consumption expenditures (PCE). That is, they compute inflation to be the current level of the price index relative to the level of the price index in the same month of the previous year. However, when the inflation rate changes quickly, as it did from 2021 through 2024, using data from a year ago might not give a clear understanding of current economic circumstances.
Advance layoff notices and aggregate job loss
Supporting Information Filename Description jae3032-sup-0001_MS14300_KL_WARN__Final_Appendix.pdfPDF document, 1.1 MB jae3032-sup-0001_MS14300_KL_WARN__Final_Appendix.pdf REFERENCES (2022). Archival economic data. Accessed: January 21, 2022. , , & (2020). A new indicator of common wage inflation. FEDS Notes. Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, July 08, 2020. , & (2020). Index of common inflation expectations. FEDS Notes.
The Effects of the Federal Reserve Chair’s Testimony on Treasury Interest Rates
The views authors express in Economic Commentary are theirs and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The series editor is Tasia Hane. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. This paper and its data are subject to revision; please visit clevelandfed.org for updates.
Underemployment Following the Great Recession and the COVID-19 Recession
(PDF ) DOI: 10.26509/frbc-ec-202201 The underemployment rate, the percent of employed people who are working part-time but prefer to be working full-time, moves closely with the unemployment rate, rising during recessions and falling during expansions. Following the Great Recession, the underemployment rate had stayed persistently elevated when compared to the unemployment rate, that is, until the COVID-19 recession. Since then, it has been consistent with its pre-2008 levels.
ec 201921 Advance Layoff Notices as Labor Market Indicator
(PDF ) DOI: 10.26509/frbc-ec-201921 We use advance layoff notices filed under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act as an indicator of current and imminent labor market conditions. We have constructed a database of establishment-level notices starting in 1990 by scraping state government websites, contacting state officials, and retrieving historical data.
The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States: Comment
Abstract Mertens and Ravn (2013) estimate impulse response functions (IRFs) from income tax changes in a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) by using narrative accounts of tax liability changes as proxy variables. To produce confidence intervals for their IRFs, they use a residual-based wild bootstrap, which has subsequently become popular in the proxy SVAR literature. We argue that their wild bootstrap is not valid, producing confidence intervals that are much too small.
Residual Seasonality in GDP Growth Remains after Latest BEA Improvements
Measuring economic growth is complicated by seasonality, the regular fluctuation in economic activity that depends on the season of the year. The BEA uses statistical techniques to remove seasonality from its estimates of GDP, but some research has indicated that seasonality remains. As a result, the BEA began a three-phase plan in 2015 to improve its seasonal-adjustment techniques, and in July 2018, it completed phase 3.
Yield Curve and Predicted GDP Growth, November 2018
Covering October 20–November 23, 2018 Highlights November October September 3-month Treasury bill rate (percent) 2.40 2.31 2.17 10-year Treasury bond rate (percent) 3.06 3.18 3.05 Yield curve slope (basis points) 66 87 88 Prediction for GDP growth (percent) 2.0 2.0 1.6 Probability of recession in 1 year (percent) 20.3 16.6 16.5 Overview of the Latest Yield Curve Figures In November, the yield curve twisted flatter, with short rates rising and long rates falling.
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06.19.18 Joel Elvery Julianne Dunn Measures of real per capita gross domestic product and per capita income rose slightly in 2016, but though the unemployment rate has fallen, the decline was driven by a decrease in the labor force. Consumer debt per capita fell slightly, but credit card delinquency rates are on the rise. Home prices grew 7.7 percent between March 2017 and March 2018, but permits for new housing have stabilized. Read More
National Preferences for Bank or Market Financing
A key function of any national financial system is channeling funds from the savers and investors who have them to borrowers and businesses who need them. How that process takes place differs from country to country; some countries have systems that rely more on banks (or bank-like organizations), while others rely more on financial markets, such as the stock and bond markets. Very little is known about why countries tend toward a bank-oriented or a markets-oriented system.
President Mester discusses “Community Banking and the Community Reinvestment Act” in St. Louis
06.19.18 Joel Elvery Julianne Dunn Measures of real per capita gross domestic product and per capita income rose slightly in 2016, but though the unemployment rate has fallen, the decline was driven by a decrease in the labor force. Consumer debt per capita fell slightly, but credit card delinquency rates are on the rise. Home prices grew 7.7 percent between March 2017 and March 2018, but permits for new housing have stabilized. Read More
Community Banking and the Community Reinvestment Act
Loretta J. Mester participates in the formulation of U.S. monetary policy, and oversees 950 employees in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh who conduct economic research, supervise banking institutions, and provide payment services to commercial banks and the U.S. government. She assumed her role as president and CEO in June 2014.
ec 201808 evolution of the labor share across developed countries
In most developed countries, the labor share—the percentage of economic output that accrues to workers as labor compensation—has declined over the last 20 years. Economists and policymakers study changes in the labor share over time because those changes indicate how much of the growth in labor productivity is captured by workers through real compensation growth.
Parental Assistance after Job Loss
Job displacement—where an employee loses a relatively stable job through no fault of their own, as in a layoff—is perhaps more common than most people realize and more detrimental. Almost half of all workers experience a job displacement at some point during their career, and the impact on their future earnings can be significant.
Behind the Slowdown of Potential GDP
The current level of real GDP is 11.4 percent below the forecast that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) made back in 2007, before the beginning of the crisis. One reason for the lower-than-expected output is that the recovery has been slow and the economy is still producing much less than its potential output level - the level that could be reached if all available capital and labor were being used at a high rate.
Can Yield Curve Inversions Be Predicted?
An inverted Treasury yield curve—a yield curve where short-term Treasury interest rates are higher than long-term Treasury interest rates—is a good predictor of recessions. Because of this, economists and policymakers often assess the risk of a yield curve inversion when the yield curve is flattening. I study the forecastability of yield curve inversions. Professional forecasters did not predict the beginning of the yield curve inversions prior to the 1990–1991, 2001, and 2008–2009 recessions.
Can Yield Curve Inversions Be Predicted?
An inverted Treasury yield curve—a yield curve where short-term Treasury interest rates are higher than long-term Treasury interest rates—is a good predictor of recessions. Because of this, economists and policymakers often assess the risk of a yield curve inversion when the yield curve is flattening. I study the forecastability of yield curve inversions. Professional forecasters did not predict the beginning of the yield curve inversions prior to the 1990–1991, 2001, and 2008–2009 recessions.
Cleveland-Housing Market Up, Labor Market Mixed
According to the 2015 US Census Bureau population estimate, Cleveland remained the 31st largest of the nation’s 382 metropolitan statistical areas. All monthly and quarterly figures are seasonally adjusted and all dollar figures are in current dollars, except home prices (which are left nominal). Where applicable, these adjustments are made prior to calculating percent changes or indexes. Several charts use indexed measures to facilitate comparisons across regions and have a reference line at 100.
Creative placemaking can be used to stimulate economies, including those in eastern Kentucky, says Cleveland Fed community development advisor
The decline of the coal industry and loss of thousands of mining jobs creates a need for a new economic direction for eastern Kentucky. One option is through “creative placemaking,” in which partners from disparate sectors use the arts and cultural activities to strategically shape the character of a region or neighborhood.
From Coal to Craft: Eastern Kentucky’s Changing Economy
Part 2 of a 4-part Forefront series examining eastern Kentucky's transition away from a coal-centric economy. Read the series Swiftly changing economic conditions, highly competitive trade growth, and a future relying on evolving technology, a transition is taking place in eastern Kentucky. The decline of the coal industry and loss of thousands of mining jobs creates a need to reexamine a new economic direction for eastern Kentucky.
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