Economic Letter

Central bank balance sheets and capital structure in the context of legal independence, transparency, and flexibility to pursue price stability have increasingly been recognized as important issues in the optimal design of central banks. However, capital structure is more complex than a set of accounting conventions designed to organize central bank operations.

This Economic Letter is adapted from remarks by Janet L. Yellen, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, delivered to the Bay Area Council 2006 Outlook Conference in San Jose, California, on April 18, 2006.

Conditions in labor markets are largely reflected in the number of jobs employers want to fill (job vacancies) and the number of people seeking jobs (the unemployed). Over the business cycle, for example, job vacancy rates and unemployment rates generally exhibit negative co-movement, with high vacancies and low unemployment when the economy is growing and vice versa when the economy is contracting.

Just a few years ago, Wall Street was rocked by scandals about conflicts of interest involving stock analysts’ reports. In response, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) undertook investigations and filed a number of complaints against some major securities firms and analysts.

The Federal Reserve System is an important participant in the nation’s payments system, which is the infrastructure used for transmitting and settling payments between individuals, firms, and government entities. For example, as reported in the Federal Reserve System’s 2004 annual report, the twelve Federal Reserve Banks processed about 16 billion checks, or about 45%, of the 37 billion checks written in 2003.

This Economic Letter is adapted from remarks by Janet L. Yellen, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, delivered to the Annual Washington Policy Conference sponsored by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) in Washington, D.C., on March 13, 2006.

This Economic Letter summarizes the papers presented at the conference on “External Imbalances and Adjustment in the Pacific Basin” held at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on September 22-23, 2005, under the sponsorship of the Bank’s Center for Pacific Basin Studies.

Financial system redesign has become high political drama in Japan. In August, 2005, Prime Minister Koizumi’s plan to privatize Japan’s huge postal savings and life insurance system (PSS) was defeated in the Lower House of the Diet.

The study of productivity growth is among the most important pursuits of economic science. Assessments of it influence macroeconomic policy and in the long run productivity growth drives improvements in the standard of living, the mix of goods and services available, as well as the mix of jobs in an economy.