FRB Beige Book 2013 - Admission/Application Essay Example

According the report, Philadelphia’s economy has been modestly expanding in a moderate rate from early October through November. Philadelphia is traditionally an economic hub of Pennsylvania with many of its manufacturing activities and Agricultural activities being major inputs to the economy. According to research, Philadelphia GDP between 2009 and 2012 grew tremendously by 9.4% ranking one of the best among United States’ districts (“BGFRU”). The GDP is approximately 364 billion which is the best increase ever recorded in United States (“BGFRU”).

Philadelphia district expressed notable gains in manufacturing industry especially in the motor vehicle and high technology industries, which involves ICT. However, comparing to 2013’s Biege book report and that of other previous years, it is evident that there is a slight change in all the sectors. Several sectors of the economy showed moderate expansion consequently making the district’s GDP to be one of the best (“BGFRU”). The sectors included residential section, general retail sales, tourism, staffing services as well as commercial real estate leasing.

However, manufacturing activity has not shown a major increase in productivity like other sectors of the economy in Philadelphia majorly after the government shutdown in United States. This is despite the continued increase in orders as well as shipments of products at a slight higher pace than other years. However, the latter only applies in a small proportion of firms with many of the firms in the industry indicating a decrease in which appeared higher than ever-recorded (“BGFRU”). These decreases appeared among manufactures of lumber, wood products, chemicals, primary metals and industry machinery (“BGFRU”).

As the latter firms recorded decreases in their operations, firms like food products, paper mills, metal fabrication and instruments reported major gains since the last Beige book. Besides, poor productivity of manufacturing industry in Philadelphia is because of firms whose operations are majorly on seasonal trend. Firms that operate on seasonal sectors have a major reduction in activity in 2013 due to government shutdown. Besides, there is a significant increase in the total workforce among numerous corporations compared to firms that reported increase a year ago.

As many other firms continued to record significant gains in their activities, others recorded major losses due to low on going activities (“BGFRU”). The quality of credit and loan volumes in banking centre has increased in the district, which is due to micro fiance skills and varied services, which these financial institutions deliver to people (“BGFRU”). Commercial real estate volumes in the banking sector showed a dramatic increase. The tremendous increase of people seeking loan in the district is because of vast demand in the housing projects.

This is because consumers are increasing their use of home equity lines rather than refinancing to conduct home improvements (“BGFRU”). In addition, according to report there is also slight change in wages, retail home prices and general commodity prices in relation to the other reports by Biege book. While conducting a research of the economy, statistics indicate that the broad general