Roundup: Monetary History, COVID-19 and Home Sales, and U.S. Trade with China

Today, we are highlighting some research the St. Louis Fed has recently produced that you may have missed.

Review

FRED-QD: A Quarterly Database for Macroeconomic Research

This article describes FRED-QD, a large, quarterly frequency database that is a source of macroeconomic “big data.” FRED-QD is currently available to the public and updated in real time using FRED data.

Managing a New Policy Framework: Paul Volcker, the St. Louis Fed, and the 1979-82 War on Inflation

In October 1979, then-Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker persuaded his Federal Open Market Committee colleagues to adopt a new policy framework that (i) accepted responsibility for controlling inflation and (ii) implemented new operating procedures to control the growth of monetary aggregates in an effort to restore price stability. This article reviews the Fed’s “monetarist experiment” from 1979-82.

A New Daily Federal Funds Rate Series and History of the Federal Funds Market, 1928-54

This article describes the origins and development of the federal funds market from its inception in the 1920s to the early 1950s. It also presents a newly digitized daily data series on the federal funds rate from April 1928 through June 1954.

Regional Economist

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Residential Real Estate Market

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected the U.S. residential real estate market during the spring months of 2020. In April and May, nationwide home sales dropped to their lowest levels since the housing and financial crisis that began in 2007. However, sales improved in the summer.

FRED Blog

Changes in the U.S.-China trade deficit

COVID-19’s effect on U.S.-China trade seems somewhat surprising, with a strong rebound of trade in the relatively early months of the COVID-19 crisis in the U.S., followed by a further strengthening of trade in more recent months.