下午好，欢迎大家! 很高兴在这里见到你们这么多人, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s 11th biennial conference on household finance and consumer payments — though this is the first we’ve held in 2D.

While I’ll regret the lack of hallway conversation — honestly, some of my best ideas have come about quite randomly at the edges of conferences like this — it’s great that by holding this conference virtually we are able to host such a widely dispersed set of participants and attendees. Though I suspect some of you are regretting missing the opportunity to pad your frequent flyer account balances … which is something else I can personally attest to.

As the president and CEO of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, it always gives me great pride to tout the stellar work of our 爱游戏电子竞技 Institute. 但在那之前, also as president and CEO of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, 我还有别的事要做. That is providing the standard Fed disclaimer: The views I express today are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of anyone else on the Federal Open Market Committee or in the Federal Reserve System.

We launched the 爱游戏电子竞技 Institute — CFI to us at the Philadelphia Fed — in 2017 as a strategic initiative dedicated to producing leading-edge, 技术含量的研究, 像这样的事件. CFI explores how credit markets and payment systems affect consumers and the economy. 但是，尽管该研究所本身只有4年的历史, it is built on a foundation of two decades of heavy investment in research centered on how people earn, 花, 保存, 和投资. The Philadelphia Fed’s interest in these topics is not only academic: Our goal at CFI is to develop insights that contribute to a healthy consumer sector, 稳定的金融体系, 以及一个有弹性的地区和国家爱游戏登录app.

对我们来说，这是个人问题. Philadelphia is the poorest big city in the United States.

Conferences like this one are a big part of CFI’s strategy to promote a healthier economy — and you’ll soon see why. 在接下来的两天, we’ll be learning about path-breaking research focused on timely subjects such as building wealth through homeownership, 消费者破产, 防疫住房救助, 以及消费者保护和监管. These are rich and interesting subjects for rigorous research in their own right, but they are also vitally important topics that have an impact on all Americans, 几乎每一天.

我在看会议资料的时候, I was also struck by how much of the research presented at this conference will focus on the racial inequities that continue to bedevil our society. 所提出的研究将集中, 例如, on racial disparities in bankruptcy filings and housing values, important examples of the many drivers of our nation’s yawning racial wealth gap.

这对我们来说也是私人的. 费城不仅是美国最贫穷的大城市, 它也是美国最大的黑人社区.

近年来, CFI researchers have documented new facts about differences in outcomes by race as it pertains to consumers’ finances, with the ultimate goal of identifying why those disparities exist. Without both — the facts and an understanding of the causal drivers — there is no way to have meaningful discussions about how public policies can improve outcomes.

在我看来, 这样的研究和辩论是正确的, 道德上，也有很大的爱游戏登录app意义. 作为国家的中央银行, the Federal Reserve is charged with building an economy that makes opportunity available to everyone and that achieves maximum employment. We can’t do that so long as profound racial inequities persist for reasons we do not fully understand.

就在去年, CFI发表了重要的新研究成果, 例如, 黑, 拉美裔, and Asian mortgage borrowers were significantly more likely than White borrowers to miss payments due to financial distress — and significantly less likely to refinance to take advantage of the large decline in interest rates that was spurred by the Federal Reserve’s mortgage-backed security purchase program. We’ve also examined which groups took up mortgage forbearance at which rates, 以及这对种族差异的影响. 那里的消息更令人鼓舞. And we’ve conducted an ongoing series of surveys focused on how the pandemic has affected different groups of Americans.

CFI学者也采取了历史的观点, 检查, 例如, the ongoing effects of racial covenants included in housing deeds nearly a century ago. 利用一系列地理空间地图, we found that properties with covenants within the city of Philadelphia formed an invisible barrier to less densely populated areas sought after by White residents and around predominantly White neighborhoods throughout the city — and that those effects are still visible.

These are just a few examples of the work CFI researchers are doing every day, and I urge all of you — once the conference is over — to please dig into our website at philadelphiafed.Org代表更多，更多.

现在, I’m well aware you’ve joined us to hear from our conference presenters rather than me, 所以我要走了. 但在我走之前, I can’t resist one more boast about the fantastic work we’re doing at the 爱游戏电子竞技 Institute. 为了这次会议, we received approximately 140 submissions and selected only eight papers to be presented. 超级碗的门票在大多数年份都比较容易买到. What a testament to the global recognition that CFI is receiving for its important, 开创性的工作!

So, thank you again for joining us and please enjoy the conference.