ding by its assessment and projections, noted that no hard evidence was available to indicate than any degree of economic recovery was in progress as of the time of the report in July 2001 (Board of Governors, Federal Reserve Board, 2001b).
The latest Beige Book report issued by the Federal Reserve was the 24 October 2001 report. In this report, issued approximately six weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, the Federal Reserve reported sharply reduced economic activity across the country in the two weeks following the attacks, but stated further that economic activity then began to recover. This recovery, however, referred to regaining the levels of economic activity that prevailed before 11 September 2001, as opposed to recovering to the levels of economic activity prevailing before the decline in output began in mid-2000 (Board of Governors, Federal Reserve Board, 2001a).
The Federal Reserve also acknowledged in the Beige Book continuing weakness in several economic sectors. These sectors included retail, automobile sales, air travel, construction, financial services, and advertising. The Federal Reserve noted that most of these problems stemmed from fundamental weaknesses in the United States economy that existed before 11 September 2001, but that the attacks likely will have long-term negative impacts on aircraft manufacturing (Board of Governors, Federal Reserve Board, 2001a).
Data released on 31 October 2001 indicated that negative growth at the annual rate of -0.4 percent characterized the United States economy in the third-quarter of 2001 (Leonhardt, 2001). The definition of an economic recession is two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth (Board of Governors, Federal Reserve Board, 2001b). Thus, the United States economy is not officially in recession; however, most projections call for negative growth in the fourth-quarter of 2001, which will me...