Reply to Federal Reserve: signs abound that housing market is entering bubble territory

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A research note written by economists at the Dallas Fed do not speak for "The Fed" (ie., the Board of Governors).

The regional Federal Reserve Banks have full license to publish whatever they want when it comes to research, predictions, etc. This article was not vetted by anyone at the Fed Board nor does it speak on behalf of "The Fed."

The language used in the note is quite measured and there's a bunch of posters on this thread (trolls?) who are sensationalizing the research note and adding hyperbole.[/quote]
This is correct.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is part of the Federal Reserve System (because of course it is).  But the papers written by staff-level economists are very different things than the statements of "The Fed."  The latter indicates how policymakers are thinking, and thus get scrutinized in excruciating detail in case any nuance in choice of words might signal what the Fed policymakers will do in the future.  The former is just a presentation of research, and while it being published by Fed economists will give that research more weight than some other economic research, it's a much different thing than "The Fed" speaking on a topic.  I'm not up on how it works in the Fed, but in other agencies with lots of economists (e.g., the FTC), the economists have lots of leeway in their research; IIRC, for example, they don't have to get their research approved by the Commission before publishing.  It's part of how the Fed and the FTC and other agencies with lots of Ph.D. economists manage to attract and keep those economists—by letting them do research that doesn't have to be approved by the political levels.

That's why there's this big disclaimer at the bottom of the article in question, for example:

[quote]The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System.[/quote]
That's not just boilerplate.  They actually mean it.  [/quote]

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