Total U.S. credit card debt has almost doubled since 1988. Little is apparent from the aggregate data, however, about the composition of credit card debt growth. The author separates household data into two categories: changes in the number of households with credit cards, and changes in average credit card debt per household.
Information technology has advanced rapidly in the past two or three decades, and an equivalent rapid gain in economy-wide productivity has been anticipated. Productivity statistics, however, do not support this expectation. Although productivity growth has risen since the slowdown witnessed in the 1970s, it can hardly be described as phenomenal.
Since 1980, commercial bank earnings have varied widely across states. The authors find that much of this variation can be attributed to the differences in economic conditions, and they suggest that interstate branching should promote a more stable banking system by enabling greater geographic diversification of bank operations.
Past experience has led financial market participants to believe that future interest rates will be closely related to the performance of the economy. If so, the shape of the yield curve ought to summarize the implicit economic forecasts of a broad range of bond traders.
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