With this posting, I’m pleased to announce the return of macroblog, which has been on hiatus since I came to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta as its research director in August of last year.

I originally launched macroblog in 2004 as an independent blog, but it will now be run through the Atlanta Fed on our Web site. Macroblog will feature commentary by me as well as other members of the Bank’s research department. The purpose of the blog is to help inform readers with commentary and observations on a variety of current economic topics, including monetary policy, macroeconomic developments, financial issues, and Southeast regional trends. I do need to emphasize that the views expressed in macroblog will not necessarily be those of the Atlanta Fed or the Federal Reserve System – feel free to quote me on that.

A few logistics: Postings to macroblog will be made on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Though we will continue to post articles during the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) blackout period (which runs from the week before the FOMC meeting until the Friday after), we will not be commenting on monetary policy during that period. In addition, I will not personally post content during the blackout period.

We view macroblog as a venue for economic discussion, and to facilitate that discussion we will provide the opportunity for you to post comments. However, please be aware that you will need to follow standards that we have established for the blog and that we will not routinely respond to comments. A link to the comment standards can be found under the About section on the main page.

I invite you to bookmark macroblog and return for the next posting on Thursday, August 14. We hope that you find macroblog to be an informative addition to your economic reading.