The FED Said Overall U.S. Economic Activity Economic activity expanded across the United States, with the majority of Federal Reserve Districts reporting modest to moderate growth. New York and St. Louis indicated slight growth, overall, while Dallas reported robust growth driven by strong manufacturing, retail, and nonfinancial services activity. On balance, manufacturers reported moderate output […] Read more

The FED Said Businesses across the Southeast are reporting rising nonlabor costs, and the most recent surveys show that firms expect their input costs to increase more quickly over the next year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s new Beige Book report on regional economic conditions. Unit costs in September were up 2 percent over […] Read more

The FED Said (actually this was from a Fed link to the NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH) Since 2000, gross profit rates in the United States have risen and industry concentration has soared, but these trends are not found in the European Union. Until the late 1990s, most U.S. markets were viewed as highly competitive […] Read more

The FED Said The stakes are high for the Southeast as the United States tries to work out new trade agreements with Mexico and Canada. The talks are intended to update the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the treaty between Mexico, Canada, and the United States that took effect in 1994. The United States […] Read more

The FED Said Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Summary of Economic Activity Sixth District business contacts indicated that economic activity expanded at a moderate pace since the previous report. On balance, the outlook among firms for the remainder of the year was positive, despite some uncertainty surrounding trade policy. Firms continued to cite hiring challenges, […] Read more

The FED Said Job creation—particularly in major cities—is one of the biggest drivers of residential real estate, attracting individuals and families to a new area. Over the past seven years, the United States has created an average of 200,000 new jobs a month. During that same time, the states in the Atlanta Fed’s district—Alabama, Florida, […] Read more

The FED Said Recent steps to scale back U.S.-Cuba ties have dampened U.S. travel and business interest in the island nation, two American entrepreneurs in the country told a forum at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. “The word of the day in Cuba right now is uncertainty,” said Collin Laverty, who operates an educational […] Read more

The FED Said That outcome would create an historical symmetry. Miami, after all, was born as what might now be called a transit-oriented development, or TOD. In the late 19th century, fewer than a million people lived in Florida, and Jacksonville was the fashionable destination for wealthy northerners. Railroad impresario Henry Flagler changed that by […] Read more

The FED Said “Nobody’s model does a very good job of how uncertainty and hits to confidence affect behavior,” says Deutsche Bank’s Peter Hooper in a recent Wall Street Journalarticle. Count us as sympathetic to his viewpoint. That’s one reason why a few of us at the Atlanta Fed created a national survey of firms in […] Read more

From the Harvard Business Review Today’s young professionals grew up in an age of mind-boggling technological change, seeing the growth of the internet, the invention of the smartphone, and the development of machine-learning systems. These advances all point toward the total automation of our lives, including the way we work and do business. It’s no […] Read more

The FED Said The new Beige Book covers some familiar themes, but also includes a few timely details that could portend future changes in certain economic sectors. Uncertainty and other effects of trade policy showed up among manufacturers and contacts in the transportation industry. Most manufacturing contacts reported increases in their costs, particularly for steel, […] Read more

The FED Said A folding placard near the Atlanta transit system’s Avondale Station makes a humble promise: “New Things Coming.” The new things are under construction—470 apartments, 34 condominiums, and street-level space for shops and restaurants. Despite the unassuming sign, this is not just another mixed-use development amid hundreds of similar projects across metropolitan Atlanta. […] Read more

The FED Said With U.S. unemployment down to levels not seen since 2000, job seekers are gaining the upper hand in the labor market as employers struggle to fill positions across skill levels. Such hiring difficulties are prompting some employers across the Southeast to raise pay. “We’ve been hearing that wage pressure is building among […] Read more

The Harvard Business Review     by Marc Freedman Judson Manor is a gracious former 1920s luxury hotel near The Cleveland Clinic, Case Western University, and many of the museums and arts institutions in Cleveland, Ohio. Today it houses 120 highly educated retirees with an average age of 79 — and seven 20-something graduate students. Back in 2010, one […] Read more

The FED Said The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta A recent FEDS Notes article summarized some interesting findings from the Board of Governors’ 2017 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking. One set of responses that caught my eye explored the connection between part-time employment and pay raises. The report estimates that about 70 percent of people working part-time did […] Read more