Publications

Financial Development, Remittances, and Real Exchange Rate Appreciation
Vol. 94, No. 1
Pablo A. Acosta, Nicole Rae Baerg, and Federico S. Mandelman
Remittances can raise the real exchange rate for recipient economies. But countries with better-developed financial markets can more effectively channel remittances toward investment activities and thus assuage remittances' appreciation effects on the local currency.

The Peak Oil Debate
Vol. 94, No. 2
Laurel Graefe
Has the world's oil output peaked, or will it peak soon? The author helps clarify this heated debate by providing definitions of frequently used (and misused) terms and discussing how technology, government policies, and prices influence oil production.

Is More Still Better? Revisiting the Sixth District Coincident Indicator
Vol. 94, No. 3
Pedro Silos and Diego Vilán
A revised version of the D6 Factor model of the southeastern economy is better than the original at describing contemporary economic activity and allows for historical comparisons across several business cycles.

Changes in the Aggregate Labor Force Participation Rate
Vol. 94, No. 4
Julie L. Hotchkiss
This paper presents a simple methodology for decomposing changes in the aggregate labor force participation rate (LFPR) into demographic group changes in both participation behavior and population shares. Changes in population shares dominated behavioral changes in the historical evolution of the aggregate LFPR.