Review

This article was originally presented as a speech at the Global Independence Center, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, August 21, 2003.

McEcon? What can two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun tell us about economics? Plenty. Economists Michael Pakko and Patricia Pollard use worldwide Big Mac prices to study the law of one price.

Out with the old? Economists Alton Gilbert and Adam Zaretsky find that, even though regulatory changes in the 1990s changed the landscape of banking competition, most of the current evidence confirms that the old assumptions of antitrust analysis are still valid.

Economists have long assumed that shocks (i.e., unexpected changes) to technology affect the business cycle, though they are difficult to identify. Neville Francis, Michael Owyang, and Athena Theodorou review the current methods of identifying them and propose a framework to expand the existing literature.

A listing of Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis working papers published in 2003.

A listing of Review articles published in 2003.