Speaking of the Economy

Daniel Davis talks about the barriers that rural communities face in fully realizing their economic potential and how economic development professionals have addressed those barriers. He also shares insights on this topic from the speakers at an Investing in Rural America webinar in June 2026.

John Bailey Jones and Jason Kosakow discuss their research on how family members and friends give their time and money to help each other and how these transfers benefit households.

John O'Trakoun discusses the supply shocks resulting from the recent conflicts in the Middle East and how businesses and consumers have responded to these shocks. O'Trakoun is a senior policy economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Urvi Neelakantan describes how employment, income growth and consumption can differ between groups of households and reviews recent trends in this divergence of economic outcomes.

Surekha Carpenter and Borys Grochulski discuss how community development financial institutions work to help underserved communities that lack adequate access to credit and what factors determine their success in filling market gaps.

Marina Azzimonti discusses how digital currency like stablecoin and physical currency like the U.S. dollar are tied together, how the demand for one affects the other, and how this relationship plays out in global financial markets.

Sonya Waddell and John Graham share their research on the adoption of artificial intelligence in the workplace, based on the expected and realized effects reported by the financial executives who participate in the CFO Survey.

Matt Martin and Erika Bell recall their visit to western North Carolina to learn more about revitalization efforts in response to long-term changes in the regional economy as well as the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Also in this episode, Scott Webber, town manager of Spindale, N.C., shares how he has worked with community partners to support redevelopment in the region.

Claudia Macaluso explains how economists identify the points of expansion and contraction in the national economy and how the current business cycle differs from past cycles. Macaluso is a senior research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Surekha Carpenter and Bethany Greene discuss the connections between the health of workers and the health of labor markets in rural communities.