Announcements

FRED has added 183 annual series from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on minimum wage workers. These data cover hourly paid workers age 16 and older with earnings at or below the prevailing federal minimum wage across various educational levels.

FRED has just added more data published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Real Trade-Weighted Value of the Dollar by U.S. State (50 monthly series): These indexes calculate the inflation-adjusted value of the U.S. dollar against the currencies of countries to which U.S. states export. The real exchange rates are aggregated across countries for each state using the annual average export share to the country. Market Value of U.S. Government Debt (3 series): For many uses, market value more accurately represents the debt burden faced by the U.S. government than the par value. The par value of government debt, reported by the U.S. Treasury, reflects interest rates at the time the debt was issued; the market value of government debt (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas researchers) is adjusted to reflect market interest rates as of the observed period.

FRED has added 324 quarterly aggregates of gross domestic product (GDP) from the Eurostat database. These data cover real and nominal GDP for the euro area, European Union, and European countries. Data for the euro area countries are presented with two versions of the euro currency series: One constructs the pre-1999 values using the irrevocably fixed exchange rate. The other (Euro/ECU series) uses the synthetic exchange rate of the European Currency Unit (ECU) to national currency to adjust for market exchange rate movements.

The FRED monthly database for macroeconomic research (FRED-MD) now includes the March 2016 vintage. This database, designed for the empirical analysis of “big data,” is described in detail in a St. Louis Fed working paper by Michael W. McCracken and Serena Ng.

FRED has added 24 daily aggregates of the repurchase agreements and reverse repurchase agreements from the New York Fed. The data are broken down by the type of securities (Treasury securities, federal agency securities, and mortgage-backed securities) and by the term of the agreement (overnight and term).

The New York Fed under the authorization and direction of the Federal Open Market Committee conducts temporary open market operations. These operations involve short-term repurchase and reverse repurchase agreements that are designed to temporarily add or drain reserves available to the banking system and influence day-to-day trading in the federal funds market. A repurchase agreement (known as repo or RP) is a transaction in which the New York Fed buys a security from an eligible counterparty under an agreement to resell that security in the future. A reverse repurchase agreement (known as reverse repo or RRP) is a transaction in which the New York Fed sells a security to an eligible counterparty with an agreement to repurchase that same security at a specified price at a specific time in the future.