Press Room

The convenience of debit and credit cards has come with the risk of cyberattacks and fraud. Hacking of payment systems has led not only to direct costs for financial institutions and retail businesses, but also to damage to company reputations and stock prices. Yet making systems more secure isn't free, either -- and the companies that would bear the cost of upgrading aren't necessarily the ones that would benefit. The cover story in the latest issue of Econ Focus looks at these and other economic problems involved in payment security.

In the latest issue of Economic Quarterly, Richmond Fed senior advisor Pierre-Daniel Sarte and research associates Jonathon Lecznar and Robert Sharp examine the extent to which U.S. per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth has been uncharacteristically slow in the recovery from the 2007-09 recession and investigate whether this tepid growth might be a short- or longer-term phenomenon. They first examine several conventional univariate time series representations of per capita GDP and use these to assess the most recent recession and recovery in relation to its previous behavior over the U.S. post-war period. They then present a decomposition of per capita GDP into three components---each of which tends to fluctuate at different frequencies from the others---and find that the substantial decline in the labor force participation rate during and after the Great Recession played a key role in the unusually large fall and slow recovery of per capita GDP. Since the labor force participation rate moves slowly over time, one might expect per capita GDP to continue to recover at a considerably slower pace than what has been observed after other post-war recessions.

The Fifth District economy grew modestly in recent weeks. Regional economic reports are in the new Beige Book.

The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee released the attached minutes of the Committee meeting held on June 17-18, 2014.

Virginia’s housing market softened during the first quarter of 2014, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond’s recent survey of more than 1,400 members of the Virginia Association of Realtors.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond announces the following officer appointment:

The FOMC voted today to make a further measured reduction in the pace of its asset purchases and maintain the current target range for the federal funds rate.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond announces the following officer appointments:

The "Beige Book" report is published eight times per year and consists of anecdotal information on current economic conditions from each Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday released the attached minutes of the Committee meeting held on April 29-30, 2014.