In The Regional Economist: Oil Prices and Inflation, States’ Efforts on Immigration, the Lifetime Premium of an Education, and More

ST. LOUIS – A new issue of The Regional Economist, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ quarterly review of regional, national and international economic issues of the day, has been posted online at https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/july-2015.   

The articles include:  

• “Are Oil Prices Linked to Inflation Expectations?” Oil prices and inflation expectations sometimes move in tandem. Economist Alejandro Badel and research associate Joseph McGillicuddy take a close look at three types of shocks to oil prices.  Their findings suggest that not all shocks relate to inflation expectations in the same manner.
• “A Look at the Impact of States’ Efforts on Immigration.” Much is known about the effects of unauthorized immigration on the nation as a whole. But little research has been done so far on the impact of states’ efforts to curb the influx – efforts such as the E-Verify program, according to economists Subhayu Bandyopadhyay, Jonathan Munemo and Santiago Pinto.
• “Lifetime Benefits of Education Climb.” The level of education determines a worker’s earnings over a lifetime to a large degree. Economist Guillaume Vandenbroucke uses a simple study of cohorts of workers over the decades to illustrate how the “lifetime education premium” is becoming more valuable than ever.
• “Low-Paying Industries Providing the Most Jobs.” The Eighth District added about 150,000 jobs from 2010 to 2013, almost 75 percent of them in low-paying industries. Such jobs are growing at a faster rate than those in high-paying industries, the opposite of what is happening on the national level, according to economist Maximiliano Dvorkin and research associate Hannah Shell.

Also in this issue:

President’s Message: “Reassessing Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound.”
“Asset Bubbles Are Hard to Detect and Measure.”
“Changes in Income Gaps Might Overstate Changes in Welfare Gaps.”
“The U.S. Economy Stumbled in Q1—Again.”
“Bowling Green, Ky., MSA: Cars, College and Caves.”
“Ask an Economist: How Is Normalization of Monetary Policy Going to Work?”