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Category Archives: Financial System

What Do Climate Risk Indices Measure?

Liberty Street Economics, New York Fed, October 7, 2024: “As interest in understanding the economic impacts of climate change grows, the climate economics and finance literature has developed a number of indices to quantify climate risks. Various approaches have been employed, utilizing firm-level emissions data, financial market data (from equity and derivatives markets), or textual… Continue Reading

Campaign Finance Made Easy: Announcing DataTalk

Cheryl Phillips, Founder and Co-Director, Big Local News: “DataTalk is an experimental system that makes it easier to follow the money flowing through national campaigns for the Nov. 5 U.S. election. It allows for natural-language queries of large public datasets from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and OpenSecrets.org to help journalists and other researchers tap… Continue Reading

Why are Red State Citizens Poorer, Less Educated & Sicker than Blue State Citizens?

Hartmann Report – “Republicans worship cheap labor — and having a steady and reliable supply of cheap labor requires widespread poverty… We must not confuse statistical probability with some transcendental and utterly compelling force. — Unspiek, Baron Bodissey One of the enduring mysteries of America is why the citizens of Red states are generally poorer,… Continue Reading

Trump would add twice as much to national debt as Harris

US Budget Watch 2024 is a project of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget – The next President will face significant fiscal challenges upon taking office, including record debt levels, large structural deficits, surging interest payments, and the looming insolvency of critical trust fund programs. Our large and growing national debt threatens to slow economic growth,… Continue Reading

Financial Institutions Net Zero Tracker

World Resources Institute: “Banks have made headlines in recent years for committing to reach “net-zero emissions” by 2050 and pledging to mobilize trillions of dollars in the fight against climate change. Indeed, banks will play an important role in halting global warming: Companies rely on them to help finance the zero- and low-carbon technologies and… Continue Reading

The Rapid Adoption of Generative AI

NBER – The Rapid Adoption of Generative AI. Alexander Bick. Adam Blandin & David J. Deming. Working Paper 32966. DOI 10.3386/w32966. Issue Date September 2024. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a potentially important new technology, but its impact on the economy depends on the speed and intensity of adoption. This paper reports results from the… Continue Reading

IRS free tax filing will be available in 24 states for the 2025 season — here’s who can use it

CNBC: “Next year, more than 30 million Americans in 24 states will be eligible for Direct File, the IRS’ free tax filing program, the agency and U.S. Department of the Treasury announced on Thursday. The Direct File pilot was open to limited taxpayers in 12 states for the 2024 filing season, including Arizona, California, Florida,… Continue Reading

Zillow introduces First Street’s comprehensive climate risk data on for-sale listings across the US

“Zillow® is introducing climate risk data, provided by First Street, the standard for climate risk financial modeling, on for-sale property listings across the U.S. Home shoppers will gain insights into five key risks—flood, wildfire, wind, heat and air quality—directly from listing pages, complete with risk scores, interactive maps and insurance requirements. With more than 80%… Continue Reading

Flood Risk Outside Flood Zones – A Look at Mortgage Lending in Risky Areas

Liberty Street Economics. September 25, 2024. Flood Risk Outside Flood Zones — A Look at Mortgage Lending in Risky Areas Kristian Blickle, Evan Perry, and João A.C. Santos. In support of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) creates flood maps that indicate areas with high flood risk, where mortgage… Continue Reading

Young women are starting to leave men behind

FT.com – Men’s education deficit is increasingly becoming an employment, earnings and outcomes gap, with significant repercussions: “Across the developed world, girls and young women have been pulling ahead of boys and young men in education for several decades, with much larger proportions going on to attend university than their male counterparts. This trend has… Continue Reading

Are you in the American middle class? Find out with our income calculator

“About half of U.S. adults (52%) lived in middle-income households in 2022, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the most recent available government data. Roughly three-in-ten (28%) were in lower-income households and 19% were in upper-income households. Our calculator below, updated with 2022 data, lets you find out which group you are in,… Continue Reading