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James Bullard, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Welcome
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May 8, 2014

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Upcoming Events
Welcome
James Bullard, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (5:54)

Keynote Address
- Introduction
Ray Boshara, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (4:05)
- Keynote Address
Neil Howe, Founding Partner and President, LifeCourse
Associates and President, Saeculum Research (36:03)
Keynote Q&A (11:04)
Extended Interview with Keynote Speaker Neil Howe
(28:43)

Plenary One — A Micro and Macro Look at Younger
Americans' Balance Sheets
- The State of the Balance Sheets of Younger Americans
Lisa Dettling, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve
System (14:25)

Monthly E-newsletter
In the Balance Email Alerts

- Links Between Younger Americans’ Balance Sheets and
Economic Growth
William Emmons, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
(21:40)
- Discussant:
Steve Fazzari, Washington University in St. Louis (18:14)
Plenary One Q&A (15:06)

Plenary Two — Student Loans
- Student Loans and the Economic Activity of Young
Consumers
Meta Brown, Federal Reserve Bank of New York (21:12)
- Does Parents’ College Savings Reduce College Debt?
Melinda Lewis, University of Kansas (18:11)
- Discussant:
Alex Monge-Naranjo, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
(19:01)
Plenary Two Q&A (18:22)
Welcome
Michael Sherraden, Washington University in St. Louis
(2:52)
Clint Zweifel, Missouri State Treasurer (6:26)
Tishaura Jones, City of St. Louis Treasurer (6:14)

Concurrent Session I
- Moderator:
Julie Birkenmaier, Saint Louis University (4:36)
- Toward Healthy Balance Sheets: The Role of Savings
Accounts for Young Adults’ Asset Diversi cation and
Accumulation
Terri Friedline, University of Kansas (22:23)
- Financial Decisions of Young Households During the Great
Recession: An Examination of the SCF 2007-09 Panel
Wenhua Di, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (19:00)
- Discussant:
John Sabelhaus, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve
System (14:38)
Session One Panel Response (6:57)

Session One Q&A (5:41)

Concurrent Session II
- Impacts of Child Development Accounts on Change in
Parental Educational Expectations: Evidence from a
Statewide Social Experiment
Michael Sherraden, Washington University in St. Louis
(13:09)
- Trends and Patterns in the Asset Holdings of Young
Households
Ellen A. Merry, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve
System (15:19)
- Discussant:
Trina Williams Shanks, University of Michigan (7:06)
Session Two Q&A (28:58)

Plenary Three — Homeownership
- Moderator:
Todd Swanstrom, University of Missouri–St. Louis (5:54)
- Homeownership and Wealth Among Low-Income Young
Adults: Evidence from the Community Advantage Program
Blair Russell, Washington University in St. Louis (15:57)
- Aggregate and Distributional Dynamics of Consumer Credit
in the U.S.
Don Schlagenhauf, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
(21:53)
- Discussant:
John Duca, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (13:59)
Plenary Three Panel Response (6:40)
Plenary Three Q&A (8:46)

Plenary Four — Economic Mobility
- Moderator:
Jason Purnell, Washington University in St. Louis (2:00)
- The Balance Sheets and Economic Mobility of Generation
X
Diana Elliott, Pew Charitable Trusts (17:58)
- Coming of Age in the Early 1970s vs. the Early 1990s:
Differences in Wealth Accumulation of Young Households in
the United States, and Implications for Economic Mobility
Daniel Cooper, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (17:11)

- Discussant:
Bhashkar Mazumder, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
(16:15)
Plenary Four Panel Response (3:14)
Plenary Four Q&A (19:02)

Closing Re ections: From Research to Policy
Michael Sherraden, Washington University in St. Louis
(15:59)
Ray Boshara, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (9:30)

Thank You / Adjourn
Julie Stackhouse, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
(5:59)
Transcript
Below is a full transcript of this video presentation. It has
not been edited or reviewed for accuracy or readability.
Jim Fuchs: Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Jim
Fuchs. I’m an Assistant Vice President here at the Federal
Reserve Bank of St. Louis and I’d like to thank you all for
joining for today’s program sponsored by the St. Louis Fed,
the St. Louis Fed’s Center for Household Financial Stability,
and Washington University’s Center for Social
Development. I will be serving as your Master of
Ceremonies for today. We’ll get into some of the
housekeeping issues a bit later, but I’d like to–got a very
exciting program and we want to start this off as a, you
know, as quickly as possible. I know that there’s a lot of
interest. A lot of good research will be presented today and
just a lot of interesting topics that I think will facilitate
some great discussion. So, we look forward to not only the
presentations, but we’re very much looking forward to the
dialogue that happens as a result of what we hear today
and the interactions between us. So, thank you again for
joining.
To kick off our program today, I am–I have the pleasure of
introducing the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of
St. Louis, Jim Bullard.
James Bullard: Thank you, Jim. Welcome and thank you
for joining us for the Second Annual Balance Sheet
Research Symposium sponsored by the Center for
Household Financial Stability, which the St. Louis Fed
launched in May of last year. The Center is pleased to cosponsor today’s event with our Research Department,
where I got my start here at the St. Louis Fed, as well as

with the Center’s partner, The Center for Social
Development at Washington University. The Washington
University Center will offer its own welcome just before the
dinner reception at 5:00.
As most of you know, our Center for Household Financial
Stability is researching family balance sheets with the aim
of strengthening both families and the economy. Because
of the nancial crisis and the Great Recession, our
framework and analysis must now not only consider what
families save and own, but what they owe as well, their
entire balance sheet. Indeed, the Great Recession has been
called a “Balance Sheet Recession,” so it’s critical for us to
understand the role that balance sheets played in bringing
down families in the economy and the role that these
balance sheets will play in building them back up.
Today’s Symposium is focused on younger Americans,
those in their 20s and 30s, because our research and the
research of others has shown that compared with middleaged and older Americans, young people have lost the
most wealth from the recession and have been by far the
slowest to recover it. Moreover, since 1989, while middleaged Americans have increased their wealth by about twothirds and older Americans have nearly doubled their
wealth, younger Americans have actually lost about 10
percent of their wealth in real terms. Not surprisingly,
studies, including some of our own, suggest that younger
Americans may not surpass the wealth accumulated by
their parents and grandparents. That’s a historical rst. So,
that’s why we’re here to better understand what’s going on
with the balance sheets of younger Americans and to draw
up the implications of the research presented here for
future research, community development, and public
policy.
Speaking of public policy, we’re taking our ndings to
Washington. I often do that in my role as monetary policy
guy. As a follow-up to the Symposium, the Center, in
partnership with The New America Foundation and a group
called Young Invincibles, is sponsoring a policy symposium
called “Millennials After the Great Recession” on October
16 and 17 in Washington D.C. We’ll examine not just
balance sheets, but issues that impact and are impacted
by balance sheets including unemployment,
underemployment, workforce development, work family
balance, cradle-to-college education, healthcare, and
technology. The challenges are many and signi cant and
we hope to look at them holistically. Stay tuned.
Looking further ahead to next April, the Federal Reserve
System will hold its biennial, I guess biannual is something
different, biennial Community Development Research
Conference. This will go around the timely theme of
economic mobility. In partnership with the Fed’s Board of
Governors, we’ll play a leadership role in this important
conference. For further information, please see the Call for

Papers in your packets. We hope you will consider
submitting a research paper.
Over the next two days, you’ll be exposed to a thoughtprovoking lineup of papers and speakers. During a break,
you might also want to pick up a copy of the essay from
the St. Louis Fed’s 2012 Annual Report, which is dedicated
to this same topic. I’m eager to listen and learn as I’m sure
you are. Let’s get started. And thank you all again for
joining us. Thank you.

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