Money and Computing
Federal Reserve Notes: Gender Gaps in the Labor Market Widen Every Summer Contributing to Gender Disparities in Promotions and Pay
"Gender gaps in labor market activity are pervasive, longstanding, and a regular subject of policy debates. Relative to men, women tend to work fewer hours per week, more conventional hours, and fewer years over the course of their lives. These differences in the intensity and timing of work contribute to gender disparities in promotions and pay. But despite decades of research on this topic, little attention has been paid to the timing of work throughout the year. To motivate our inquiry, Figure 1 plots the monthly labor force participation rates of prime-age US women and men using non–seasonally adjusted data, with June, July, and August shaded gray. Summer after summer, women's labor force participation drops sharply while men's participation does not." more »
Rules Changes for 2023 Baseball; They May Relate to a Quicker, More Exciting Game. What's a Balk Again?
1) PITCH TIMER
• 15 seconds with bases empty; 20 seconds with runners on
• Hitter gets 1 timeout per plate appearance; must be in batter’s box with 8 seconds left
• Pitchers get two disengagements (pickoff attempts or step-offs) per batter; violations are a balk
• Limits on pickoff attempts led to 26% increase in stolen base attempts in Minors
• Pitch timer helped reduce game length by 25 minutes in Minors in ‘22 more »
Federal Reserve Testimony, Bank Oversight: Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).
"SVB failed because the bank's management did not effectively manage its interest rate and liquidity risk, and the bank then suffered a devastating and unexpected" run by its uninsured depositors in a period of less than 24 hours. SVB's failure demands a thorough review of what happened, including the Federal Reserve's oversight of the bank. To begin, SVB's failure is a textbook case of mismanagement. The bank had a concentrated business model, serving the technology and venture capital sector. It also grew exceedingly quickly, tripling in asset size between 2019 and 2022. During the early phase of the pandemic, and with the tech sector booming, SVB saw significant deposit growth. The bank invested the proceeds of these deposits in longer-term securities, to boost yield and increase its profits. However, the bank did not effectively manage the interest rate risk of those securities or develop effective interest rate risk measurement tools, models, and metrics. At the same time, the bank failed to manage the risks of its liabilities." more »
IRS Warning, March 24, the Dirty Dozen: Scammers Using Fake Charities to Exploit Taxpayers; NY State Filing Addition*
"Help stop fraud and scams: As part of the Dirty Dozen awareness effort, the IRS Lead Development Center in the Office of Promoter Investigations promote improper and abusive tax schemes as well as tax return preparers who deliberately prepare improper returns ... Scams requesting donations are especially common over the phone, as well as by email and texts. Taxpayers should never feel pressured to give immediately, and they should look to recognized, established charities to help victims." more »