One Nation, Under Aggregation: Twelve Federal Reserve Districts and the National Labor-Market Summary
Using monthly data from 2001 through 2025, this paper compares the Federal Reserve’s twelve-district geography with alternative connected regions. A whole-state Federal Reserve analogue retains 48.9 percent of state dispersion, within the range produced by alternative regional groupings. San Francisco, Chicago, and Richmond account for over two-thirds of within-district loss.