FHFA: House Price Index Up 0.4 Percent in November 2017
U.S. house prices rose in November, up 0.4 percent from the previous month, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) seasonally adjusted monthly House Price Index (HPI). The previously reported 0.5 percent increase in October was revised upward to 0.6 percent. The FHFA monthly HPI is calculated using home sales price information from mortgages…
ABA: Bank Economists See Solid Economic Growth Supported by Tax Reform
The U.S. economy will continue to grow through 2019, surpassing the longest previous period of economic prosperity in the post-war era, according to the Economic Advisory Committee of the American Bankers Association. “This expansion has already spanned nine years, supported by strengthening labor markets, low interest rates, and a late-cycle resurgence in business investment,” said…
Census Bureau: New 2012-2016 American Community Products Available
The U.S. Census Bureau has scheduled for the release of the 2012-2016 American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample, the 2012-2016 variance replicate tables and the Puerto Rico Community Survey. The Public Use Microdata Sample files provide a 5 percent sample of the U.S. population for users to create their own tabulations. The 2012-2016 variance…
HUD and Census Bureau: Residential Construction Activity in December 2017
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Census Bureau jointly announced the following new residential construction statistics for December 2017. Building Permits: Privately owned housing units authorized by building permits in December were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,302,000. This is 0.1 percent (±1.4 percent)* below the revised…
Federal Reserve: From Income to Consumption Inequality? Looking through the Lens of Motor Vehicle Purchases
Wendy Dunn and Maria D. Tito1 Rising income inequality in the United States over the past several decades has been well documented in the economics literature.2 Recent studies have also looked at the dispersion in consumption, since it more accurately captures disparities in economic well-being. Here, however, the findings are mixed–while some authors find the…
SBA: New Report Helps Explain Differences in Latino Business Ownership and Income
A new report prepared for the Office of Advocacy by Professor Robert Fairlie, “Latino Business Ownership: Contributions and Barriers for U.S. Born and Immigrant Latino Entrepreneurs,” evaluates the differences in Latino self-employment rates and business income, comparing immigrant and U.S.-born Latino men and women with non-minorities. Roughly 600,000 business owners are U.S.-born Latinos, with an…
Federal Reseve: Entrepreneurship and State Taxation
FEDS 2018-03 Entrepreneurship and State Taxation (PDF) E. Mark Curtis and Ryan A. Decker Abstract: Entrepreneurship plays a vital role in the economy, yet there exists little well-identified research into the effects of taxes on startup activity. Using recently developed county-level data on startups, we examine the effect of states’ corporate, personal and sales tax…
Federal Reserve: New Interactive Data Tools Added to Website for the Financial Accounts of the United States
The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday added three new tools to its web site to provide interactive access to data from the Board’s Financial Accounts of the United States (Z.1) release, which tracks the aggregate wealth of U.S. households and other economic sectors. The data visualization tools show, at a glance, the evolution of key…
ABA: Report Shows Consumer Delinquencies Mixed in Third Quarter
The delinquency picture was mixed in last year’s third quarter, as delinquencies in closed-end loans (like personal or auto loans) rose while delinquencies in key open-end loans (like credit cards) fell, according to results from the latest American Bankers Association Consumer Credit Delinquency Bulletin. Overall, delinquencies fell in 5 and rose in 5 of the…
Federal Reserve: Inequality in 3-D – Income, Consumption and Wealth
Finance and Economics Discussion Series (FEDS) Inequality in 3-D: Income, Consumption, and Wealth (PDF) by Jonathan Fisher, David Johnson, Timothy Smeeding, and Jeffrey Thompson Abstract: We do not need to and should not have to choose amongst income, consumption, or wealth as the superior measure of well-being. All three individually and jointly determine well-being. We…