stability board to coordinate their efforts to stabilize the global financial system, reform international financial regulation, and share information. 1 the fsb includes central banks, finance ministries and regulators from 24 nations, the european union, and also international organizations such as the international monetary fund and important global financial standardsetting bodies. unlike other global organizations, the fsb includes multiple agencies from each government in recognition of the fact that financial stability is a responsibility shared across many parts of any government. from the united states, the federal reserve, the u. s. treasury department, and the securities and exchange commission are members. some of you may reasonably be wondering, at this point of the speech, how we got from rural appraisals in utah to the financial stability board in switzerland. how are the conditions in 2008 and 2009 that led to creation of the fsb relevant to community banking? let us remind ourselves how that global financial crisis and ensuing recession looked to communities in utah and the bankers who serve them. community banks, as we all know, engaged in little of the risky activity that was the basis of the crisis. but few community banks, i think, were unaffected by the competitive forces that were unleashed in the years leading up to 2008. when short - term wholesale funding froze up, and securitizing loans became impossible, and fannie mae and freddie mac effectively failed, community banks were affected. and when your customers were hit hard by the crisis, 3 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches community banks were affected too. in two years, from 2007 to 2009, the unemployment rate in utah more than tripled. as it usually does, utah weathered the great recession better than most places, but it was still the toughest economic times our state has faced in many decades, and of course, this profoundly affected banks and their customers. while that was occurring, the federal reserve and governments in other countries affected by the crisis were tackling several challenges in trying to strengthen financial regulation and oversight. one fundamental problem was information, specifically the lack of information about risks and vulnerabilities both within and across jurisdictions. the federal reserve and other u. s. agencies had some tools to help assess prudential risks for u. s. - based firms when the crisis hit. information sharing about systemic financial vulnerabilities was more limited, particularly for conditions outside the united states. for one, we did not understand the importance of some financial vulnerabilities or had only limited information on them

to refinance their homes at lower rates. the staff at the federal reserve board has estimated that house price increases of 10 percent or less from current levels would be sufficient for about 40 percent of underwater homeowners to regain positive equity. it is my view that understanding the long - run trends in income and wealth across different households is important in understanding the dynamics of the macroeconomy and thus also may be relevant for setting monetary policy to best reach our goals of maximum employment and price stability. i believe that the accommodative policies of the fomc and the concerted effort we have made to ease conditions in the mortgage markets will help the economy continue to gain traction. and the resulting expansion in employment will likely improve income levels at the bottom of the distribution. however, given the long - standing trends toward greater income and wealth inequalities, it is unlikely that cyclical improvements in the labor markets will do much to reverse these trends. conclusion it strikes me that macroeconomists are far from a comprehensive understanding of how wealth and income inequality may affect business cycle dynamics. my remarks today are given only in the spirit of describing how that relationship might be further explored. i have said nothing about the social costs associated with such trends, nor have i provided much detail on what is occurring at the top end of the income and wealth distribution and the effects of those trends on the recovery. nonetheless, i believe that, given the wide income and wealth disparities in the united states, this area is ripe for more research. bis central bankers ’ speeches in recent years, the board has increased its efforts to measure and understand differences in the economic situations faced by different types of families. a particularly strong source of data to improve our understanding of the role for inequality and heterogeneity is the scf. the triennial scf marks its 30th anniversary this year, as the fieldwork for the 2013 survey begins this month. the data we collect on u. s. families are a fundamental input for many different types of research projects being undertaken by board economists, in other government agencies and research centers, and in academia. in addition, the board, in partnership with other members of the federal reserve system, is engaged in a wide range of analysis and research using rich and timely data on households ’ use of consumer credit. and the board continues to support direct efforts to understand differences in spending and saving behavior across households, such as studies of stimulus policies in the thomson