On March 1 of this year, the Trump administration announced its intention to implement import tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum. The tariffs went into effect on March 23. At the moment, a number of our major trading partners are excluded from the tariffs: For the time being, Canada, Mexico, the European Union (EU), South Korea, Argentina, Australia, and Brazil are among th... Read More

Note: This post is based on previous work presented by the same authors at the forum “Navigating Pension Reform in Illinois: What Lies Ahead”, held on April 17, 2018 at the Chicago Fed. The original presentation is available here. The State of Illinois has a very large unfunded pension liability and will likely have to pay much of it off by raising taxes. The Illinois Commission ... Read More

Summary The Seventh District economy maintained a healthy pace of growth through the end of 2017 and into January, with most signs pointing toward above-trend growth. The manufacturing sector finished 2017 well, with good news spread across its subsectors. And it’s worth noting that while the auto industry struggled in the middle of the year, it ended the year in decent shape. Out... Read More

On December 22nd of last year, President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a law that makes substantial changes to the federal tax code for individuals and businesses. An important provision of the act is tax cuts for both groups worth an estimated $1.46 trillion over the next ten years. Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that businesses will pay $330.4 billio... Read More

Harvard economist Edward Glaeser shows that education is one of the strongest predictors of urban economic growth. This is particularly the case for older cities like Chicago. One of the reasons for this is that a higher density of college-educated workers is associated with higher levels of worker productivity. There is very good news for Chicago. Recent data for 2016 from the Un... Read More

Summary We now have data for the Seventh District economy for the early fall, and they largely indicate that the nice run of good growth in the District continued. As has been the case throughout the year, the manufacturing sector was the driving force behind the good conditions—solid global growth and a revival in the U.S. energy sector continued to support important industries, ... Read More

Summary Growth in the Seventh District was pretty good to start the second half of the year, even though the pace was clearly slower than that of the first half. As is usual for the District, the manufacturing sector was the driving force behind this development. As I noted in the mid-year review, the boost in manufacturing activity appears to have been driven by growth in the glo... Read More

With the recent release of the Chicago Fed's June Midwest Economy Index (MEI), we now have a good picture of how the Seventh District's economy has done in the first half of this year. Overall, things went pretty well, and it appears that revivals in global growth and U.S. oil production are behind the good results. These revivals have lifted some long-struggling manufacturing industries ... Read More

A summary of economic conditions in the Seventh District from the latest release of the Beige Book and other indicators of regional business activity: Overall conditions: Growth in economic activity in the Seventh District picked up to a moderate pace in late May and June and respondents' outlooks for growth over the next 6 to 12 months also improved some. Employment and Wages: Employme... Read More

A summary of economic conditions in the Seventh District from the latest release of the Beige Book and other indicators of regional business activity: Overall conditions: Growth in economic activity in the Seventh District slowed to a modest pace in April and early May. Respondents' outlooks for growth over the next 6 to 12 months also pulled back some, but remained positive on balance. ... Read More