Have you ever heard of Zipf's Law? I'll bet you haven't. Zipf's Law states that there typically appears to be a numerical regularity between the population size and population rank of cities within any particular region or nation. Specifically, within a region or nation, multiplying any city's population size by its rank among cities will yield a constant number throughout the distributio... Read More

Multi-state U.S. regions are defined in a number of ways. One such grouping is the “Great Lakes Region,” comprising all the states that border the Great Lakes. The states that run east to west are New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota (map below). During the nineteenth century, the efficient transportation of materials on the Lakes and connect... Read More

On average, rural America has not been faring as well as metropolitan America in terms of population and income growth. Is this trend yet another painful adjustment that can be attributed to globalization? Globalization policies continue to be closely intertwined with agricultural markets, which have been the historic lifeblood of rural communities in the Midwest. Last month, the ... Read More

Each autumn, I have traveled down to the Indianapolis area to deliver a local perspective on the economy to the Indiana Economic Development Forum. This autumn, the Forum addresses the theme of “work force training and education.” As I survey Indiana's economic performance over the past 15 years, it strikes me that Indiana is on the right track with its strategic focus on boosting work fo... Read More

Loss of market share from the traditional Big Three automakers to global competitors has impacted Michigan's economy, leading to some deep concerns about its future. To date, most attention to this issue has focussed on job loss related to automotive production activity. Auto assembly and parts production continues at a strong (though eroding) clip in the United States, but it is rapidly ... Read More

Following unprecedented home price appreciation nationwide in recent years, homeowners are much concerned about price reversal. In their current Economic Perspectives article, Chicago Fed economists Jonas Fisher and Saad Quayyum find that, on average, much of the recent surge in housing can be attributed to fundamentals such as rising income and favorable demographics, as well as innovati... Read More

Perhaps the most notable economic development taking place in the Seventh District is the market shift away from the traditional “Big 3” domestic auto makers-General Motors, Ford, and (Daimler)-Chrysler-and their parts suppliers. Lost sales are shifting toward the “new domestics” such as Toyota and Nissan and their parts suppliers. The sales gainers tend to be located outside of the Midwe... Read More

Urban economist Wilbur Thompson once said, “Tell me your industries, and I'll tell you your future.” A region's industries do tell us a lot about its economy. In the Midwest, manufacturing industries often drive fluctuations and trends in the region's overall economic growth because manufacturing is a much larger part of its economy, on average, than the rest of the nation's. So, too, man... Read More

This question is posed by Michael Kouparitsas and Daisuke Nakajima (K-N) in a current Economic Perspectives article. The answer, in general, is “yes,” and, in their analysis, many additional insights are gained about the structure and behavior of the Seventh District regional economy and its five component states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin. The so-called bu... Read More

Manufacturing jobs and income are shrinking as a share of the national economy as well as the Midwest economy. Some representatives of manufacturers raise this fact in alarm, worrying that the shrinkage leaves the nation unable to support its needs and wants. But at the same time, some manufacturing advocates sometimes claim that the sector's is mis-measured and undercounted. Meanwhile, e... Read More