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Texas economy, housing market and Globalization Institute focus of Dallas Fed report

For Immediate Release: February 29, 2008

DALLAS—The latest issue of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas' Southwest Economy features articles on the Texas economy, the Texas housing market and the Dallas Fed’s new Globalization Institute.

Find the January/February issue at http://dallasfed.org/research/swe/2008/index.cfm

The Texas economy enjoys advantages that will help it avoid a recession, according to economist Fiona Sigalla in “Texas Finds Cover from U.S. Economic Storm.”

Texas economic growth will probably be below average in 2008 but should outpace the nation, Sigalla states. Job growth should run near 2 percent in Texas.

 “A Texas recession isn’t in the forecast,” Sigalla writes. “A relatively low cost of living continues to attract firms and residents to the state, and an economy that is more globally integrated than in other states boosts demand for Texas products and services.”

Texas is also one of the few states that benefits from high energy prices, Sigalla says. In addition, construction doesn’t appear to be too far ahead of demand.

In “Hot Housing Market Catching Cold in Texas,” business economist D’Ann Petersen finds that a weakening Texas housing market still remains healthier than the national average.

 “In the longer term, Texas’ location and cost advantages, fast-growing population and relatively buoyant economy put the state’s housing industry in a strong position to respond when demand turns the corner,” Petersen writes.

Tighter inventories should shield the Texas housing market from large price declines found in other areas of the country, she notes.

In “Delving More Deeply into Globalization,” vice president Mark A. Wynne, director of the Globalization and Monetary Policy Institute at the Dallas Fed, discusses the institute’s goal of better understanding monetary policy in an open economy.

 “As we become more integrated with the rest of the world, some of the relationships that have traditionally guided monetary policy deliberations seem to have changed,” Wynne says.

The Dallas Fed has hired several new economists who specialize in open economy macroeconomics to serve as the core of the new institute.

Its advisory board—chaired by John B. Taylor, Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University—consists of a group that Dallas Fed President and CEO Richard W. Fisher called a “stellar panel of advisors.”

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Media contact:
James Hoard
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Phone: (214) 922-5307
E-mail: james.hoard@dal.frb.org