On November 29, 2016, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago will hold a conference to examine the agricultural downturn in the Midwest and discuss future directions for farming, concluding with a panel discussion on the evolution of agricultural lending. (Check the event page for more details on the conference, including the agenda, and to register.) Experts from academia, industry, and pol... Read More
Illinois's fiscal situation will likely require tax and revenue increases. How might we assess a municipality's tax capacity, or ability to “absorb” a larger tax bill? In our previous blog, we reviewed various methods of assessing tax capacity. Now, we use the municipal-gap method to estimate tax capacities for Cook County municipalities. The municipal gap is the difference betwee... Read More
First, our ongoing special announcement: As a Midwest Economy blog reader, you may also want to sign up to follow our new Chicago Fed Survey of Business Conditions (CFSBC), which is a survey of business contacts conducted to support the Seventh Federal Reserve District's contribution to the Beige Book. The Chicago Fed produces diffusion indexes based on the quantitative questions... Read More
For a recent Chicago Fed Letter article, I looked back at the fiscal performance of Illinois's state and local governments and found that, taken together, Illinois governments had been consistently spending more than they had brought in since at least the late 1980s. I also found that while the typical U.S. state often spent more than its revenues over this period, the extent of Illinois'... Read More
A recent study ranked Illinois 47th among U.S. states and Puerto Rico for its fiscal health.1 Particularly concerning was the report’s finding that the combination of total debt, unfunded pension liabilities, and underfunded other post-employment benefits amounts to 61% of total state personal income. In contrast, the same figure for other Seventh District states ranges from a high of 38%... Read More
First, a (repeat) repeat special announcement: As a Midwest Economy blog reader, you may also want to sign up to follow our new Chicago Fed Survey of Business Conditions (CFSBC), which is a survey of business contacts conducted to support the Seventh Federal Reserve District's contribution to the Beige Book. The Chicago Fed produces diffusion indexes based on the quantitative que... Read More
Both Chicago and Detroit have become poster children for city government financial stress in recent years. Chicago’s city and school district alike have been running structural deficits, meaning that the government has been covering its normal operating expenditures by issuing or over-extending debt and running down its assets. Both Chicago’s municipal government and school district face... Read More
First, a (repeat) repeat special announcement: As a Midwest Economy blog reader, you may also want to sign up to follow our new Chicago Fed Survey of Business Conditions (CFSBC), which is a survey of business contacts conducted to support the Seventh Federal Reserve District's contribution to the Beige Book. The Chicago Fed produces diffusion indexes based on the quantitative que... Read More
First, a (repeat) special announcement: As a Midwest Economy blog reader, you may also want to sign up to follow our new Chicago Fed Survey of Business Conditions (CFSBC), which is a survey of business contacts conducted to support the Seventh Federal Reserve District's contribution to the Beige Book. The Chicago Fed produces diffusion indexes based on the quantitative questions ... Read More
Over the past decade, 17 of the 20 largest cities in the United States gained population. Recent academic studies on these trends have attributed them to changes in residential preferences, the location of skilled jobs, and cultural amenities. Both Chicago (third largest) and Detroit (18th) are exceptions to these trends. The population of the city of Chicago declined modestly from 2.9 mi... Read More
