#2008-026A "City Business Cycles and Crime"
by Thomas A. Garrett, and Lesli S. Ott
August 2008

We explore the influence of city-level business cycle fluctuations on crime in 20 large cities in the United States. Our monthly time series analysis considers seven crimes over an approximately 20-year period: murder, rape, assault, robbery, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. More...

#2008-002C "Income Convergence in the United States: A Tale of Migration and Urbanization"
by Riccardo DiCecio, and Charles S. Gascon
January 2008
Revised December 2008

We use non-parametric distribution dynamics techniques to reassess the convergence of per capita personal income (PCPI) across U.S. states and across metropolitan and nonmetropolitan portions of states for the period 1969-2005. More...

#2007-050B "States and the Business Cycle"
by Michael T. Owyang, David E. Rapach, and Howard J. Wall
November 2007
Revised October 2008

We model the U.S. business cycle using a dynamic factor model that identifies common factors underlying fluctuations in state-level income and employment growth. More...

FORTHCOMING: Journal of Urban Economics

#2007-046B "Urban Crime and Labor Mobility"
by Subhayu Bandyopadhyay, Santiago Pinto, and Christopher H. Wheeler
October 2007
Revised March 2008

We present a model of crime where two municipalities exist within a metropolitan statistical area (MSA). More...

#2007-045C "Human Capital Externalities and Adult Mortality in the U.S."
by Christopher H. Wheeler
October 2007
Revised January 2008

Human capital is now widely recognized to confer numerous benefits, including higher incomes, lower incidence of unemployment, and better health, to those who invest in it. More...

#2007-043D "Why Do So Few Women Work in New York (and So Many in Minneapolis)? Labor Supply of Married Women Across U.S. Cities"
by Dan Black, Natalia Kolesnikova, and Lowell J. Taylor
October 2007
Revised October 2008

This paper documents a little-noticed features of U.S. labor markets – that there is very large variation in the labor market participation rates and annual work hours of married women across cities. We focus on cross-city differences in commuting times as a potential explanation for this variation in women's labor supply. More...

#2007-010B "Measuring the Information Content of the Beige Book: A Mixed Data Sampling Approach"
by Michelle T. Armesto, Rubén Hernández-Murillo, Michael T. Owyang, and Jeremy M. Piger
March 2007
Revised May 2008

Studies of the predictive ability of the Federal Reserve's Beige Book, an anecdotal measure of regional economic conditions, for aggregate output and employment have proven inconclusive. More...

FORTHCOMING: Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking

#2007-004A "The Perils of Globalization: Offshoring and Economic Insecurity of the American Worker"
by Richard G. Anderson, and Charles S. Gascon
February 2007

According to polls from the 2006 congressional elections, globalization and economic insecurity were the primary concerns of many voters. More...

#2007-003D "A State-Level Analysis of the Great Moderation"
by Michael T. Owyang, Jeremy M. Piger, and Howard J. Wall
February 2007
Revised May 2008

A number of studies have documented a reduction in aggregate macroeconomic volatility beginning in the early 1980s, i.e., the “Great Moderation.” More...

PUBLISHED: Regional Science and Urban Economics, November 2008, 38(6), pp. 578-89

#2006-058C "Strategic Online-Banking Adoption"
by Roberto Fuentes, Rubén Hernández-Murillo, and Gerard Llobet
October 2006
Revised January 2008

In this paper we study the determinants of banks’ decision to adopt a transactional website for their customers. More...