The Beige Book, more formally called the Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions, is a

report A report is a document that presents information in an organized format for a specific audience and purpose. Although summaries of reports may be delivered orally, complete reports are almost always in the form of written documents. Usage In ...

published by the United States

Federal Reserve Board The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, commonly known as the Federal Reserve Board, is the main governing body of the Federal Reserve System. It is charged with overseeing the Federal Reserve Banks and with helping implement the mon ...

eight times a year. The report is published in advance of meetings of the

Federal Open Market Committee The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), a committee within the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), is charged under United States law with overseeing the nation's open market operations (e.g., the Fed's buying and selling of United States Treasur ...

. Each report is a gathering of " anecdotal information on current

economic An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

conditions" by each

Federal Reserve Bank A Federal Reserve Bank is a regional bank of the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. There are twelve in total, one for each of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts that were created by the Federal Reserve A ...

in its district from "Bank and Branch directors and interviews with key business contacts, economists, market experts, and others." It is called the ''Beige Book'' because its cover is colored

beige Beige is variously described as a pale sandy fawn color, a grayish tan, a light-grayish yellowish brown, or a pale to grayish yellow. It takes its name from French, where the word originally meant natural wool that has been neither bleached no ...

History

The ''Beige Book'' (at that time called the ''Red Book'') would first be collected under the direction of

Arthur Burns Arthur Frank Burns (April 27, 1904 – June 26, 1987) was an American economist and diplomat who served as the 10th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1970 to 1978. He previously chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President Dwight ...

in 1970, seeking to formalize the process of collecting qualitative understandings of the various districts under the Federal Reserve. The ''Red Book'' would become public following the request of U.S. House of Representatives delegate

Walter E. Fauntroy Walter Edward Fauntroy (born February 6, 1933) is an American pastor, civil rights activist, and politician who was a delegate to the United States House of Representatives and a candidate for the 1972 and 1976 Democratic presidential nominations ...

in 1983. This public release would lead to the document being published with a Tan cover - later to be identified as Beige and named as such. Further care was taken to ensure that the document was anonymous with regard to the sources of the qualitative opinions within the text. While there was initial concern about the book becoming the subject of overinterpretation, the document itself was not much noticed until after the

stock market crash of 1987 Black Monday is the name commonly given to the global, sudden, severe, and largely unexpected stock market crash on Monday, October 19, 1987. In Australia and New Zealand, the day is also referred to as ''Black Tuesday'' because of the time z ...

, where it would become more frequently mentioned within financial and news publications like the

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

, and

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

. Consistent mention of the ''Beige Book'' has been made in public financial publications in years since, identifying it as both predictive and market influencing in nature - something which has since been followed up with scholarly consideration of these issues. Beginning in 2017 the form and structure of the ''Beige Book'' has been changed to encourage more uniformity and comparability between individual districts reports.

Beige Book Scholarship

While it was never the intention with the initial publication of the ''Beige Book'' that it would be predictive, various scholars have looked into its predictive or market influencing forces. This is further complicated by the fact that the language within individual districts varies in nature with how it identifies the current market, outside of the subjective evaluations identified. Other topics of research involve evaluating how effectively the ''Beige Book'' mirrors actual shifts in the financial climate of a given district. Current thoughts are that while the beige book may forecast to a small degree, its forecasts are largely influenced by various other factors like the irregular release schedule of the text and the more widely varying economic nature of each individual district.

References

External links

Federal Reserve Board Beige Book website
{{Federal Reserve System Federal Reserve System Economics publications