Our Team
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Vice President, Richmond
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell is a vice president and economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Waddell manages the Regional and Community Analysis team, setting the strategic direction for various data products, surveys, and other regional and local analysis produced by the Research Department.
Prior to joining the Richmond Fed in 2008, Waddell worked as an economist in the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget and at ICF International in Washington, D.C. She earned her bachelor's degree from Williams College in 2001 and her master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006.
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Academic Publications
AIDS: Official Journal of the International AIDS Society, Vol. 21, November 2007: S67-S73
Michael R. Carter, Julian May, Jorge Agüero and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
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Bank Publications
Economic Brief, September 2022, No. 22-36
Data suggest that labor market tightness has meant an increased number of open jobs per unemployed worker and heightened employer recruiting effort per vacancy.
Claudia Macaluso and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Economic Brief, June 2022, No. 22-22Diffusion indexes can help summarize survey responses, but they have some limitations.
Santiago Pinto and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Econ Focus, Second Quarter 2022Numerous factors — including population growth, education, housing, transportation, child care, health, and broadband availability — are shaping the differences in employment outcomes between rural and urban communities.
Sierra Latham, Stephanie Norris, Jessie Romero and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Economic Brief, March 2022, No. 22-08Many firms don't follow inflation closely for setting prices, but the recent high inflation may have some firms taking a closer look.
Felipe F. Schwartzman and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Economic Brief, February 2022, No. 22-07Remote work options seem to go hand in hand with greater geographic reach in recruitment efforts for some firms.
Steven J Davis, Claudia Macaluso and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Economic Brief, September 2021, No. 21-28Recent Richmond Fed surveys shed light on how employers attempt to fill jobs.
Steven J Davis, Claudia Macaluso and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Econ Focus, Second/Third Quarter 2021Many states, including some in the Fifth District, have enacted legislation in the last year to increase the minimum wage, and those increases will have both direct and indirect effects on workers, households, and businesses in the District.
Stephanie Norris and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Special Reports, June 18, 2020What's behind those consumer spending and saving dynamics, and what do those April numbers mean for the broader economy?
Emily Wavering Corcoran and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Special Reports, May 27, 2020John Mullin, Jessie Romero and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Special Reports, March 31, 2020Thomas A. Lubik and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Econ Focus, First Quarter 2019Why are hospitals in rural areas closing at a higher rate, and what are the consequences for these communities?
Emily Wavering Corcoran and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Econ Focus, Second Quarter 2018The Richmond Fed looks at the economic impact of the opioid crisis in the Fifth District.
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Econ Focus, Second Quarter 2017Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Economic Quarterly, Third Quarter 2016Pierre-Daniel G. Sarte and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Econ Focus, Fourth Quarter 2015Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Economic Quarterly, Fourth Quarter 2015Santiago Pinto, Sonya Ravindranath Waddell and Pierre-Daniel G. Sarte
Econ Focus, First Quarter 2015Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Econ Focus, First Quarter 2014Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Econ Focus, First Quarter 2014Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Economic Quarterly, First Quarter 2011Sonya Ravindranath Waddell, Anne Davlin and Edward S. Prescott
Economic Brief, January 2009, No. 09-01Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
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Regional Matters
November 10, 2022
Our Fifth District business surveys indicate that firms are paying more attention to inflation as they make price- and wage-setting decisions. But businesses also expect own-price growth and inflation to moderate in the near future.
Nicholas Haltom and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
March 31, 2022In our March business survey, we found that firms continue to struggle finding workers across skill levels, particularly in the low- to mid-skill range.
Jason Kosakow and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
February 25, 2022Fifth District firms report that two years into the pandemic, they still cannot provide enough goods and services to completely meet customer demand.
Jason Kosakow and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
October 14, 2021Heirs' property, land passed through generations without a clear title, is an unstable form of landownership that can lead to lost capital and wealth.
Surekha Carpenter and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
September 30, 2021The labor force was pushed into a massive remote work experiment in 2020. What are employers in the Fifth District planning, and what challenges do they anticipate?
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
May 3, 2021The economic recovery enabled by the vaccine rollout has increased demand for Fifth District goods and services. But can supply keep up with demand?
Jacob Crouse and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
March 11, 2021Rural black Fifth District communities have long suffered fewer economic opportunities and thus worse economic outcomes.
Surekha Carpenter and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
February 26, 2021Labor force participation took a big hit from the pandemic. How then should we interpret states’ reported unemployment rates?
Nicholas Haltom and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
February 4, 2021This article provides some history on the evolution of the Fifth District population across race and the rural-urban continuum since the late 1800s.
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
January 7, 2021Fifth District business surveys indicate that after a volatile year, firms remain uncertain about when or if they will return to pre-COVID levels of business activity.
Jacob Crouse and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
April 13, 2020Between mid-March and early April, more than 360,000 Virginians filed for unemployment. What does this mean for employment measures and the state's economy?
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
April 6, 2020As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads across the country, Americans are taking measures to distance themselves from their communities, both voluntarily and by mandate. What measures have Fifth District jurisdictions taken and what might this mean for the Fifth District economy?
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell and Jacob Crouse
March 24, 2020On March 13, 2020, the President declared a national state of emergency and by March 16, every state and the District of Columbia had declared states of emergency, all due to the rapid escalation of positive cases of COVID-19. However, Fifth District firms were reporting impacts from the virus before the emergency declarations and the initiation of social distancing mandates in states and localities across the country.
Joseph Mengedoth and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
May 31, 2018In April, we surveyed firms about their adoption of technology and how it might translate into prices and employment in the next few years. Most firms reported adopting new technology, although many did not anticipate the technology to notably impact their pricing or employment decisions.
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
October 18, 2017The Fifth District economy has been increasingly driven by urban areas. How do we understand the existence, growth and decline of cities?
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
August 24, 2017Fifth District states — especially West Virginia — are struggling with the opioid epidemic as drug use and opioid overdose deaths continue to rise.
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
November 18, 2016The Richmond Fed publishes a series of diffusion indices based off of surveys of manufacturing and service sector firms across the Fifth District. These indices help us to understand business conditions in our region in a timely and more comprehensive way.
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
June 8, 2016There are 12 Federal Reserve Banks across the country: How did one land in Richmond, Virginia?
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
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Other Work
"The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Educational Outcomes in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa." University of Wisconsin-Madison, Masters Thesis, 2006.
"The Extent of Urban Bias in Belize." Williams College, Honors Thesis, 2001.
Our Team
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell

I track current macroeconomic and regional economic trends and have written on a variety of topics, including regional housing markets, regional survey diffusion indices, and the economics of urban areas.