Simply Put Will Compernolle

Recent research from the Congressional Budget Office suggests that an initial undercounting of undocumented migrants may help explain the surprisingly resilient US economy during the last two years. From a macroeconomic perspective, the future path of migration flows will significantly affect longer-term estimates of potential economic growth and public budget trajectories. In this episode, we talk with Julia Gelatt, Associate Director of the US Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, about the current state of US immigration, the most important drivers of US migration flows, the role of policy versus external factors, and the impacts of migration on the US economy and federal budget.

The Federal Home Loan Bank system started as a Great Depression-era effort to support homeownership across the United States. Ever since, it has transformed into a vital source of liquidity for its member banks in good times and bad. In this episode, we talk with James Hotchkiss, Senior Director of Strategies and Solutions at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, about the FHLB system’s history, how it serves its member banks, and its role in the US financial system.

The labor market is at the center of overall economic activity and how the Federal Reserve understands inflation. It can be difficult to gauge underlying trends for employment and compensation, however, when some data series appear to be telling different stories. In this episode, we talk with Preston Mui, Senior Economist at Employ America, about how to understand the most important labor market data, how the Fed views labor market tightness in its fight against high inflation, and the outlook for 2024.

The use of derivatives has evolved since the global financial crisis, giving banks opportunities to protect against the risks and uncertainty that stem from aggressive Fed tightening. Now that the Fed is poised to begin policy easing later this year, these tools can also help banks weather falling interest rates to support financial system stability. In this episode, we talk with Brian Matochik and Christian Turner, Senior Vice Presidents with the Derivative Products Group at FHN Financial, about the value of derivatives for banks in a wide range of market environments, how regulators view the use of derivatives, and how institutions of any size can benefit from their use.

Decades ago, the Basel Accords attempted to minimize global financial risk by standardizing regulations across major countries. The current phase of legislation, initially crafted after the global financial crisis and now dubbed the “Basel III endgame,” would impose new risk-weighted capital requirements on US banks and widen the net of financial regulation, potentially increasing costs for banks and customers in an attempt to elevate banking sector resiliency. In this episode, we talk with Greg Baer, President and Chief Executive Officer at the Bank Policy Institute, about Basel III’s key elements, the tradeoff between profitability and banking sector stability, and the road ahead for the proposed legislation.

The shift from rock-bottom interest rates early in the pandemic to mortgage rates eclipsing 8% has caused housing inventories to plummet and demand for new housing construction to increase. As the housing market reaches somewhat of a standstill from homeowners experiencing “mortgage lock,” rising house prices make first-time homeownership increasingly less affordable. While the housing market has so far weathered these changes without an industry-wide collapse, cyclical forces can always cause distress down the line. In this episode, we talk with Mark Palim, Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist with Fannie Mae, about how the housing market has adjusted to pandemic disruptions, the future for home sales and house prices, and the potential for any systemic risks.