The Volcker Shock was a period of historically high interest rates precipitated by Federal Reserve Chairperson Paul Volcker's decision to raise the central bank's key interest rate, the Fed funds effective rate, during the first three years of his term. Volcker was appointed chairperson of the Fed in August 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, as replacement for William Miller, who Carter had made his treasury secretary. Volcker was one of the most hawkish (supportive of tighter monetary policy to stem inflation) members of the Federal Reserve's committee, and quickly set about changing the course of monetary policy in the U.S. in order to quell inflation. The Volcker Shock is remembered for bringing an end to over a decade of high inflation in the United States, prompting a deep recession and high unemployment, and for spurring on debt defaults among developing countries in Latin America who had borrowed in U.S. dollars.

Monetary tightening and the recessions of the early '80s

Beginning in October 1979, Volcker's Fed tightened monetary policy by raising interest rates. This decision had the effect of depressing demand and slowing down the U.S. economy, as credit became more expensive for households and businesses. The Fed funds rate, the key overnight rate at which banks lend their excess reserves to each other, rose as high as 17.6 percent in early 1980. The rate was allowed to fall back below 10 percent following this first peak, however, due to worries that inflation was not falling fast enough, a second cycle of monetary tightening was embarked upon starting in August of 1980. The rate would reach its all-time peak in June of 1981, at 19.1 percent. The second recession sparked by these hikes was far deeper than the 1980 recession, with unemployment peaking at 10.8 percent in December 1980, the highest level since The Great Depression. This recession would drive inflation to a low point during Volcker's terms of 2.5 percent in August 1983.

The legacy of the Volcker Shock

By the end of Volcker's terms as Fed Chair, inflation was at a manageable rate of around four percent, while unemployment had fallen under six percent, as the economy grew and business confidence returned. While supporters of Volcker's actions point to these numbers as proof of the efficacy of his actions, critics have claimed that there were less harmful ways that inflation could have been brought under control. The recessions of the early 1980s are cited as accelerating deindustrialization in the U.S., as manufacturing jobs lost in 'rust belt' states such as Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania never returned during the years of recovery. The Volcker Shock was also a driving factor behind the Latin American debt crises of the 1980s, as governments in the region defaulted on debts which they had incurred in U.S. dollars. Debates about the validity of using interest rate hikes to get inflation under control have recently re-emerged due to the inflationary pressures facing the U.S. following the Coronavirus pandemic and the Federal Reserve's subsequent decision to embark on a course of monetary tightening.

Policy interest rates in the U.S. and Europe are forecasted to decrease gradually between 2024 and 2027, following exceptional increases triggered by soaring inflation between 2021 and 2023. The U.S. federal funds rate stood at **** percent at the end of 2023, the European Central Bank deposit rate at **** percent, and the Swiss National Bank policy rate at **** percent. With inflationary pressures stabilizing, policy interest rates are forecast to decrease in each observed region. The U.S. federal funds rate is expected to decrease to *** percent, the ECB refi rate to **** percent, the Bank of England bank rate to **** percent, and the Swiss National Bank policy rate to **** percent by 2025. An interesting aspect to note is the impact of these interest rate changes on various economic factors such as growth, employment, and inflation. The impact of central bank policy rates The U.S. federal funds effective rate, crucial in determining the interest rate paid by depository institutions, experienced drastic changes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The subsequent slight changes in the effective rate reflected the efforts to stimulate the economy and manage economic factors such as inflation. Such fluctuations in the federal funds rate have had a significant impact on the overall economy. The European Central Bank's decision to cut its fixed interest rate in June 2024 for the first time since 2016 marked a significant shift in attitude towards economic conditions. The reasons behind the fluctuations in the ECB's interest rate reflect its mandate to ensure price stability and manage inflation, shedding light on the complex interplay between interest rates and economic factors. Inflation and real interest rates The relationship between inflation and interest rates is critical in understanding the actions of central banks. Central banks' efforts to manage inflation through interest rate adjustments reveal the intricate balance between economic growth and inflation. Additionally, the concept of real interest rates, adjusted for inflation, provides valuable insights into the impact of inflation on the economy.

Level of impact interest rates have on the business or organization, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), business employment size, type of business, business activity and majority ownership, fourth quarter of 2024.

Economic welfare is essential in the modern economy since it directly reflects the standard of living, distribution of resources, and general social satisfaction, which influences individual and social well-being. This study aims to explore the relationship between national income accounting different attributes and the economic welfare in Pakistan. However, this study used data from 1950 to 2022, and data was downloaded from the World Bank data portal. Regression analysis is used to investigate the relationship between them and is very effective in measuring the relationship between endogenous and exogenous variables. Moreover, generalized methods of movement (GMM) are used as the robustness of the regression. Our results show that foreign direct investment outflow, Gross domestic product growth rate, GDP per capita, higher Interest, market capitalization, and population growth have a significant negative on the unemployment rate, indicating the rise in these factors leads to a decrease in the employment rate in Pakistan. Trade and savings have a significant positive impact on the unemployment rate, indicating the rise in these factors leads to an increase in the unemployment rate for various reasons. Moreover, all the factors of national income accounting have a significant positive relationship with life expectancy, indicating that an increase in these factors leads to an increase in economic welfare and life expectancy due to better health facilities, many resources, and correct economic policies. However, foreign direct investment, inflation rate, lending interest rate, and population growth have significant positive effects on age dependency, indicating these factors increase the age dependency. Moreover, GDP growth and GDP per capita negatively impact age dependency. Similarly, all the national income accounting factors have a significant negative relationship with legal rights that leads to decreased legal rights. Moreover, due to better health facilities and health planning, there is a negative significant relationship between national income accounting attributes and motility rate among children. Our study advocated the implications for the policymakers and the government to make policies for the welfare and increase the social factors.

ABSTRACT This article presents the debate between Keynes and the Classics relative to the determinants of the rate of interest, with the objective of analyze if there is any subject theoretically relevant under discussion. We demonstrate that, contrary to what has been said by many neoclassical scholars like Hicks, there is an important theoretical question being discussed between Keynes and the Classics, that is the mechanism according to which the plans of saving and investment have influence over the rate of interest. For the “Classics” these decisions have immediate influence over the rate of interest, i.e. the immediate impact of variations of saving and investment is over this variable. For Keynes, however, the immediate impact of these variations will be over the level of income and employment. As a result of this effect there will be a change in the level of interest rate. This same question reappears on the debate between Asimakopulos, Kregel and Davidson; but in a different context, that is the consideration of propensity to save as a financial restraint to investment decisions.

Unemployment Rate in South Africa increased to 32.90 percent in the first quarter of 2025 from 31.90 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024. This dataset provides - South Africa Unemployment Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

This analysis presents a rigorous exploration of financial data, incorporating a diverse range of statistical features. By providing a robust foundation, it facilitates advanced research and innovative modeling techniques within the field of finance.

Is There a Netflix Effect on Unemployment? A Statistical Exploration

Financial data:

• Historical daily stock prices (open, high, low, close, volume)

• Fundamental data (e.g., market capitalization, price to earnings P/E ratio, dividend yield, earnings per share EPS, price to earnings growth, debt-to-equity ratio, price-to-book ratio, current ratio, free cash flow, projected earnings growth, return on equity, dividend payout ratio, price to sales ratio, credit rating)

• Technical indicators (e.g., moving averages, RSI, MACD, average directional index, aroon oscillator, stochastic oscillator, on-balance volume, accumulation/distribution A/D line, parabolic SAR indicator, bollinger bands indicators, fibonacci, williams percent range, commodity channel index)

Machine learning features:

• Feature engineering based on financial data and technical indicators

• Sentiment analysis data from social media and news articles

• Macroeconomic data (e.g., GDP, unemployment rate, interest rates, consumer spending, building permits, consumer confidence, inflation, producer price index, money supply, home sales, retail sales, bond yields)

Potential Applications:

• Stock price prediction

• Portfolio optimization

• Algorithmic trading

• Market sentiment analysis

• Risk management

Use Cases:

• Researchers investigating the effectiveness of machine learning in stock market prediction

• Analysts developing quantitative trading Buy/Sell strategies

• Individuals interested in building their own stock market prediction models

• Students learning about machine learning and financial applications

Additional Notes:

• The dataset may include different levels of granularity (e.g., daily, hourly)

• Data cleaning and preprocessing are essential before model training

• Regular updates are recommended to maintain the accuracy and relevance of the data

Unemployment Rate in Canada decreased to 6.90 percent in June from 7 percent in May of 2025. This dataset provides - Canada Unemployment Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Exploiting variation in the timing of resets of adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), we find that a sizable decline in mortgage payments (up to 50 percent) induces a significant increase in car purchases (up to 35 percent). This effect is attenuated by voluntary deleveraging. Borrowers with lower incomes and housing wealth have significantly higher marginal propensity to consume. Areas with a larger share of ARMs were more responsive to lower interest rates and saw a relative decline in defaults and an increase in house prices, car purchases, and employment. Household balance sheets and mortgage contract rigidity are important for monetary policy pass-through.

Expectations over the next three months as a result of increased interest rates, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), business employment size, type of business, business activity and majority ownership, first quarter of 2023.

Level of impact interest rates have on the business or organization, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), business employment size, type of business, business activity and majority ownership, first quarter of 2024.

Unemployment Rate in the United Kingdom increased to 4.60 percent in April from 4.50 percent in March of 2025. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United Kingdom Unemployment Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

The U.S. federal funds effective rate underwent a dramatic reduction in early 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The rate plummeted from 1.58 percent in February 2020 to 0.65 percent in March, and further decreased to 0.05 percent in April. This sharp reduction, accompanied by the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing program, was implemented to stabilize the economy during the global health crisis. After maintaining historically low rates for nearly two years, the Federal Reserve began a series of rate hikes in early 2022, with the rate moving from 0.33 percent in April 2022 to 5.33 percent in August 2023. The rate remained unchanged for over a year, before the Federal Reserve initiated its first rate cut in nearly three years in September 2024, bringing the rate to 5.13 percent. By December 2024, the rate was cut to 4.48 percent, signaling a shift in monetary policy in the second half of 2024. In January 2025, the Federal Reserve implemented another cut, setting the rate at 4.33 percent, which remained unchanged throughout the following months. What is the federal funds effective rate? The U.S. federal funds effective rate determines the interest rate paid by depository institutions, such as banks and credit unions, that lend reserve balances to other depository institutions overnight. Changing the effective rate in times of crisis is a common way to stimulate the economy, as it has a significant impact on the whole economy, such as economic growth, employment, and inflation. Central bank policy rates The adjustment of interest rates in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a coordinated global effort. In early 2020, central banks worldwide implemented aggressive monetary easing policies to combat the economic crisis. The U.S. Federal Reserve's dramatic reduction of its federal funds rate - from 1.58 percent in February 2020 to 0.05 percent by April - mirrored similar actions taken by central banks globally. While these low rates remained in place throughout 2021, mounting inflationary pressures led to a synchronized tightening cycle beginning in 2022, with central banks pushing rates to multi-year highs. By mid-2024, as inflation moderated across major economies, central banks began implementing their first rate cuts in several years, with the U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of England, and European Central Bank all easing monetary policy.

Unemployment Rate in Philippines decreased to 3.90 percent in May from 4.10 percent in April of 2025. This dataset provides - Philippines Unemployment Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

This dataset supports the research exploring the impact of monetary policy instruments on the Colombian economy, focusing on the classical dichotomy and monetary neutrality. The analysis delves into how monetary policy, including instruments such as interest rates and money supply, influences both nominal and real variables in the economy. It also highlights the relationship between monetary policy and economic stability, particularly how central banks manage inflation and economic growth. Key sections explore the separation between nominal and real variables as explained by the classical dichotomy, and the principle of monetary neutrality, which argues that changes in money supply affect nominal variables without impacting real economic factors.

The dataset is structured around a combination of theoretical insights and simulations that analyze the effectiveness of monetary neutrality in the Colombian context, given both domestic and international economic challenges such as the war in Ukraine and agricultural sector disruptions. Through simulations, the dataset demonstrates the effects of monetary expansion on variables like inflation, production, and employment, providing a framework for understanding current economic trends and proposing solutions to socio-economic challenges in Colombia.

This report analyses the Official Cash Rate (OCR) of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Te Putea Matua). The main objective of the OCR is to maintain price stability (between 1-3% inflation) and support sustainable full employment. The RBNZ influences market interest rates and the cost of borrowing and lending money through its OCR decisions. Interest rates affect the level of household and business spending, which has an impact on the prices of goods and services. The RBNZ generally reviews the OCR every six weeks. The data for this report is sourced from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and is presented as the average rate over each financial year.

Analysis of ‘USA Key Economic Indicators’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://www.kaggle.com/calven22/usa-key-macroeconomic-indicators on 28 January 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

Context

Domino’s Pizza, like many other restaurant chains, is getting pinched by higher food costs. The company’s chief executive, Richard Allison, anticipates “unprecedented increases” in the company’s food costs, which could jump by 8-10%. He said that is three to four times what the pizza chain would normally expect in a year.

This leads to the paramount issue of inflation which affects every aspects of the economy, from consumer spending, business investment and employment rates to government programs, tax policies, and interest rates. The recent release of consumer inflation data showed prices rose at the fastest pace since 1982. Inflation forecasting is key in the conduct of monetary policy and can be used in many other ways such as preserving asset values. This dataset is a consolidated macroeconomic official statistics from 1981 to 2021, containing data available in month and quarterly format.

Content

The Core Consumer Price Index (ccpi) measures the changes in the price of goods and services, excluding food and energy due to their volatility. It measures price change from the perspective of the consumer. It is a often used to measure changes in purchasing trends and inflation.

Do note there are some null values in the dataset.

Acknowledgements

All data belongs to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis official release, and are retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Inspiration

What are some noticeable patterns or seasonality of the economy? What are the current trends of the economy? Which indicators has an effect on Core CPI or vice-versa based on predictive power or influence?

Quarterly data and monthly data can be merged with forward-fill or interpolation methods.

What is the forecast of Core CPI in 2022?

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

This study applies factor-augmented vector autoregressions to identify the effects of monetary policy shocks in a small, open, emerging market economy. It uses data on 132 variables for Poland, ‘compressing’ them to either structural (having an economic interpretation) or economically uninterpretable factors, also known as diffusion indices. The tightening of monetary policy is found to have broad, contractionary effects. Among other things, production, employment, job offers, prices, loans and stock prices decrease, unemployment and non-performing loans increase. As one of extensions, the effects of changes in global and foreign factors are investigated. Domestic prices are found to respond to global prices of commodities and foreign prices. Domestic production and interest rates – to their foreign counterparts.

This paper proposes a model that explains the joint occurrence of liquidity traps and jobless growth recoveries. Its key elements are downward nominal wage rigidity, a Taylor-type interest rate feedback rule, the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates, and a confidence shock. Absent a change in policy, the model predicts that low inflation and high unemployment become chronic. With capital accumulation, the model predicts, in addition, an investment slump. The paper identifies a New Fisherian effect, whereby raising the nominal interest rate to its intended target for an extended period of time can boost inflationary expectations and thereby foster employment.

Economic welfare is essential in the modern economy since it directly reflects the standard of living, distribution of resources, and general social satisfaction, which influences individual and social well-being. This study aims to explore the relationship between national income accounting different attributes and the economic welfare in Pakistan. However, this study used data from 1950 to 2022, and data was downloaded from the World Bank data portal. Regression analysis is used to investigate the relationship between them and is very effective in measuring the relationship between endogenous and exogenous variables. Moreover, generalized methods of movement (GMM) are used as the robustness of the regression. Our results show that foreign direct investment outflow, Gross domestic product growth rate, GDP per capita, higher Interest, market capitalization, and population growth have a significant negative on the unemployment rate, indicating the rise in these factors leads to a decrease in the employment rate in Pakistan. Trade and savings have a significant positive impact on the unemployment rate, indicating the rise in these factors leads to an increase in the unemployment rate for various reasons. Moreover, all the factors of national income accounting have a significant positive relationship with life expectancy, indicating that an increase in these factors leads to an increase in economic welfare and life expectancy due to better health facilities, many resources, and correct economic policies. However, foreign direct investment, inflation rate, lending interest rate, and population growth have significant positive effects on age dependency, indicating these factors increase the age dependency. Moreover, GDP growth and GDP per capita negatively impact age dependency. Similarly, all the national income accounting factors have a significant negative relationship with legal rights that leads to decreased legal rights. Moreover, due to better health facilities and health planning, there is a negative significant relationship between national income accounting attributes and motility rate among children. Our study advocated the implications for the policymakers and the government to make policies for the welfare and increase the social factors.