Letter from the Editor: We're Putting Even More Emphasis on the Region's Economies

Dear Readers,

The St. Louis Fed has been expanding its involvement in the states and communities of the 8th Federal Reserve District. As part of this initiative, the Research Division has established the Center for Regional Economics-8th District (CRE8). The role of CRE8 is to provide and facilitate rigorous economic analysis of policy issues affecting local, state and regional economies-particularly those in the 8th Federal Reserve District.

In addition to doing research, CRE8 organizes policy forums, conferences and symposia that highlight economic research by others. These events are intended to inform and initiate discussions among policy-makers in the states and communities of the 8th District.

We have also formed the 8th District Business and Economics Research Group (BERG), a research forum that includes CRE8 and university-based business and economics research centers in the states of the District. Please visit the CRE8 web site at http://research.stlouisfed.org/regecon/, where you can find a link to the BERG web page.

The Regional Economist is also undergoing changes. Beginning with this issue, we are publishing two new short articles that discuss employment trends in the metro areas within our District. One article will focus on either the St. Louis metro area or one of our three branch metro areas-Memphis, Little Rock and Louisville. The other article will focus on the smaller metro areas within one of our four zones. Over the course of a year, every metro area centered in the District will be covered.

To make room for these new articles, we have removed two of our data pages from the print edition. But don't worry, they are still available on The Regional Economist web site at www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/.