expanded unemployment insurance benefits. household spending stepped up in mid - april, coinciding with the first disbursement of stimulus payments to households and a ramp - up in the payout of unemployment benefits, and showed the most pronounced increases in the states that received more benefits. 9 with some of the fiscal support measures either provided as one - off payments or slated to come to an end in july, inflation compensation over the next few years have retraced much of their sharp declines in mid - march but remain below their typical ranges in recent years. the 5 - to - 10 - year measure of longer - term inflation compensation derived from treasury inflation - protected securities, at around 1. 4 percent, remains notably below pre - pandemic levels. this evidence is also consistent with recent research by baker and others, who examine a panel of households using a financial planning app and show that these households responded quickly to cares act ( coronavirus aid, relief, and economic security act ) stimulus payments despite stay - at - home orders and social distancing ; see scott r. baker, r. a. farrokhnia, steffen meyer, michaela pagel, and constantine yannelis ( 2020 ), “ income, liquidity, and the consumption response to the 2020 economic stimulus payments, ” nber working paper series 27097 ( cambridge, mass. : national bureau of economic research, may ). other recent studies, including kargar and rajan as well as chetty and others, find similar responses to the cares act using different data. see ezra karger and aastha rajan ( 2020 ), “ heterogeneity in the marginal propensity to consume : evidence from covid - 19 stimulus payments, ” working paper series 2020 - 15 ( chicago : federal reserve bank of chicago, may ), https : / / www. chicagofed. org / publications / working - papers / 2020 / 2020 - 15 ; and raj chetty, john n. friedman, nathaniel hendren, michael stepner, and the opportunity insights team ( 2020 ), “ how did covid - 19 and stabilization policies affect spending and employment? a new real - time economic tracker based on private sector data, ” opportunity insights working paper ( cambridge, mass. : opportunity insights, may ), https : / / opportunityinsights. org / wp - content / uploads / 2020 / 05 / tracker _ paper. pdf. analysis

lael brainard : strengthening diversity in economics speech by ms lael brainard, member of the board of governors of the federal reserve system, at the conference for the 2017 summer training and scholarship program, sponsored by the american economic association and the national science foundation and hosted by the department of economics, michigan state university, east lansing, michigan, 28 july 2017. * * * i am grateful to john maggs for his assistance in preparing this text. the remarks represent my own views, which do not necessarily represent those of the federal reserve board or the federal open market committee. let me begin by expressing my appreciation to the american economic association ( aea ), the national science foundation and the other organizations and institutions sponsoring this conference, which for nearly 20 years has focused attention on the benefits of diversity and the need for continued progress in ensuring that the best and the brightest have the opportunity to advance and contribute to the field of economics. i want to especially thank lisa cook for giving me the opportunity to be here today. i am particularly pleased to be able to speak with students participating in the aea ’ s summer and mentoring programs. at the fed, we share the goal of making sure the group of students who go on to practice economics look more like america. so if you are interested in pursuing economics, we want to make sure you have an opportunity to contribute to the field. perhaps more than any other profession, it is in the dna of economists to believe that equality of opportunity is important not only as a matter of fairness, but also to our country ’ s vitality. in addition, economists like to base conclusions on hard numbers. the numbers make clear there is a persistent lack of diversity in the economics profession, which indicates we are falling short of our ideals. the quality of the economics profession and its contributions to society will be stronger when a broader range of people are engaged. we now have substantial empirical evidence documenting the benefits of diversity in broadening the range of ideas and perspectives that are brought to bear on solving problems, and thereby contributing to better outcomes, both in research and in policy. studies suggest that increased diversity alters group dynamics and decisionmaking in positive ways. as amanda bayer and cecilia rouse have noted, microeconomic experiments and other research have confirmed these ideas. one experiment found that greater racial diversity helped groups of business students outperform other students in solving problems. and another found similar benefits from gender diversity. a study of 2. 5 million research papers across the sciences found