The Global Institute advances policy-driven research on global trade, international capital and migration flows, and knowledge and technology transfer with a particular interest in linkages with Mexico. Through this expertise, the Institute delivers insights and analysis to better inform U.S. monetary policy.
Mexico’s GDP grew only 0.9 percent year over year in fourth quarter 2024, after expanding 2.4 percent in 2023 and 4.6 percent in 2022. Economic growth slowed, mainly due to lower investment, slowing consumption and a contracting energy sector.
The Texas economy grew slightly below trend through the first quarter of 2025. While job growth appears just off its long-term annual trend rate of about 2.1 percent, the Dallas Fed Texas Business Outlook Surveys (TBOS) point to slowing activity in both the services and manufacturing sectors.
Taylor County Texas A&M AgriLife Extension agent Steve Estes discusses with Dallas Fed economist Laila Assanie the challenges of perpetually coping with little rain in the Big Country, where agriculture and ranching drive the area economy, including that of Abilene.
Structural Change in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Open Economy Perspective
This paper studies the evolution of manufacturing value added shares in 11 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries through the lens of an open economy model of structural change.
The Problem of Quality Change in Historical Price Statistics: An Illustrative Example Using Baedeker Travel Guides
This paper uses a novel dataset on the prices of the travel guidebooks published by the German publishing house Baedeker between 1832 and 1944 to construct a hedonic price index for guidebooks. Comparing these indexes to the list prices of these guidebooks, the paper shows that the failure to adjust for improvements in the quality of the guidebooks over time imparts a substantial upward bias to measured inflation.
Tempting FAIT: Flexible Average Inflation Targeting and the Post-COVID U.S. Inflation Surge
In August 2020, the Federal Reserve replaced Flexible Inflation Targeting (FIT) with Flexible Average Inflation Targeting (FAIT), introducing make-up strategies that allow inflation to temporarily exceed the 2% target. Using a synthetic control approach, this paper estimates that FAIT raised CPI inflation by about 1 percentage point and core CPI inflation by 0.5 percentage points, suggesting a moderate impact net of food and energy and a largely temporary effect. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis of a steeper-than-expected post-pandemic Phillips curve in the New Keynesian model.
This paper exploits bilateral trade flows of final and intermediate goods together with the structure of static trade models that deliver gravity equations to identify exogenous changes in trade costs between countries. The authors then use a local projections approach to assess the effects of trade cost shocks on consumer price (CPI) inflation.
An Anatomy of U.S. Establishments’ Trade Linkages in Global Value Chains
Global value chains (GVC) are a pervasive feature of modern production, but they are hard to measure. Using U.S. Census microdata, this paper develops novel measures of the linkages between U.S. manufacturing establishments’ imports and exports. The paper documents three new GVC patterns.
Structural Change in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Open Economy Perspective
This paper studies the evolution of manufacturing value added shares in 11 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries through the lens of an open economy model of structural change.
The Problem of Quality Change in Historical Price Statistics: An Illustrative Example Using Baedeker Travel Guides
This paper uses a novel dataset on the prices of the travel guidebooks published by the German publishing house Baedeker between 1832 and 1944 to construct a hedonic price index for guidebooks. Comparing these indexes to the list prices of these guidebooks, the paper shows that the failure to adjust for improvements in the quality of the guidebooks over time imparts a substantial upward bias to measured inflation.
Tempting FAIT: Flexible Average Inflation Targeting and the Post-COVID U.S. Inflation Surge
In August 2020, the Federal Reserve replaced Flexible Inflation Targeting (FIT) with Flexible Average Inflation Targeting (FAIT), introducing make-up strategies that allow inflation to temporarily exceed the 2% target. Using a synthetic control approach, this paper estimates that FAIT raised CPI inflation by about 1 percentage point and core CPI inflation by 0.5 percentage points, suggesting a moderate impact net of food and energy and a largely temporary effect. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis of a steeper-than-expected post-pandemic Phillips curve in the New Keynesian model.
This paper exploits bilateral trade flows of final and intermediate goods together with the structure of static trade models that deliver gravity equations to identify exogenous changes in trade costs between countries. The authors then use a local projections approach to assess the effects of trade cost shocks on consumer price (CPI) inflation.
An Anatomy of U.S. Establishments’ Trade Linkages in Global Value Chains
Global value chains (GVC) are a pervasive feature of modern production, but they are hard to measure. Using U.S. Census microdata, this paper develops novel measures of the linkages between U.S. manufacturing establishments’ imports and exports. The paper documents three new GVC patterns.
Topic experts will discuss the economic implications of declining immigration, higher tariffs and nearshoring in Mexico as well as other dynamics of the North American economy.
Learn about inflationary risks posed by factors including COVID-induced supply chain bottlenecks, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and tariffs and restrictions on U.S.-China trade in this article from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors' FEDS Notes series.
Proceedings of the 2014 conference that brought together leading academic and government researchers who explored the realities of the landmark trade agreement.
Proceedings from 2006 conference that examine the various dimensions in which trade and migration affect economic development, whether individually or jointly, through economic or political forces.
Contact us
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Global Institute, Research Department
2200 N. Pearl St.
Dallas, TX 75201
braden.strackman@dal.frb.org
