New Year Brings New Content and New Look to Publication

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the new Regional Economist. As we mark the publication’s 15th anniversary, we are introducing a variety of changes: more pages, additional features and a different look. The update was prompted, in part, by your responses to our reader survey almost two years ago: In general, you liked what we were giving you, but you wanted more. Hence, the changes you see today aren’t radical.

Regular readers will notice the new design, starting with the size. We’ve switched to a standard 8.5 x 11 because many of you said this would make for easier filing and photocopying. The nameplate on the cover is different, as well as the typefaces inside. As you page through the publication, you will see fewer illustrations and more photographs—partly to lower costs, partly because the staff craved something different. The presentation of the charts and other data has been simplified.

As for “more,” we are adding at least four pages to every issue. (For those of you who worried about the cost of this publication, be aware that we have switched to less-expensive paper.) Sometimes, this additional space will be used for more articles; other times, as in this issue, the space will allow for lengthier explanations of what our economists want to share with you.

At least one of these extra pages will always be devoted to a new feature, which we are calling “Reader Exchange.” Here, we will print your letters and give the results of our quarterly online poll, which is always pegged to an article in that quarter’s issue of RE. We will also list upcoming presentations by our economists (if open to the public) and will alert you to any interviews with them that you can listen to online. In addition, we are starting “Ask an Economist,” a column in which one of our economists answers a question posed by readers. (This issue’s question: Why are there so many price indexes?) The point of “Reader Exchange” is to give you a chance to share your thinking with us and with other readers; we also want to steer you to our web site so that you can see what else we—the entire St. Louis Fed—have to offer that could prove informative and helpful to you, from journals for scholars to newsletters for nonprofit community developers, from FOMC news to speeches by our leaders, from economics curriculum for teachers to regulatory updates for bankers. Go to www.stlouisfed.org to see what else you can find.

In the meantime, feel free to let us know what you think about the new Regional Economist. Send us a letter online or mail a letter to either of us at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Box 442, St. Louis, MO 63166.

Howard J. Wall and Michael R. Pakko

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