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(Reuters) – Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) is in talks to merge its off-patent drugs business with Mylan NV (MYL.O) in a stock deal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Mylan shareholders would receive a little more than 40{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} of the newly formed entity, with Pfizer shareholders receiving the remainder, the Journal said, adding Pfizer would also get about $12 billion in proceeds from a new sale of debt.

Pfizer and Mylan did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. economic growth slowed less than expected in the second quarter as a surge in consumer spending blunted some of the drag from declining exports and a smaller inventory build, which could further allay concerns about the economy’s health.

The fairly upbeat report from the Commerce Department will probably not deter the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates next Wednesday for the first time in a decade, given rising risks to the economy’s outlook, especially from a trade war between the United States and China.

Despite the better-than-expected GDP reading, business investment contracted for the first time since early 2016 and housing contracted for a sixth straight quarter. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell early this month flagged business investment and housing as areas of weakness in the economy.

But the signs of robust consumer spending, together with a strong labor market, further diminish expectations of a 50 basis point rate cut and could raise doubts about further monetary policy easing this year.

Gross domestic product increased at a 2.1{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} annualized rate in the second quarter, the government said. The economy grew at an unrevised 3.1{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} pace in the January-March quarter.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP increasing at a 1.8{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} rate in the second quarter.

The economy is slowing largely as the stimulus from the White House’s $1.5 trillion tax cut package fades. The tax cuts together with more government spending and deregulation were part of measures adopted by the Trump administration to boost annual economic growth to 3.0{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} on a sustained basis.

The economy grew 2.9{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} in 2018 and growth this year is expected to be around 2.5{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}. Economists estimate the speed at which the economy can grow over a long period without igniting inflation at between 1.7{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} and 2.0{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}.

The GDP report showed a pickup in inflation last quarter. A gauge of inflation tracked by the Fed increased at a 1.8{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} rate last quarter, just below the U.S. central bank’s 2{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} target.

The government also published revisions to GDP data from 2014 through 2018. The updated data showed growth in the second and third quarters of last year was not as robust as previously estimated, and the economy grew much more slowly in the fourth quarter than had been reported in March. Revised price data showed moderate inflation last year.

STRONG CONSUMER SPENDING

Growth in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, surged at 4.3{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} rate in the second quarter, the fastest since the fourth quarter of 2017. Consumer spending grew at a 1.1{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} rate in the first quarter.

Some of the slowdown in consumer spending early in the year was blamed on a 35-day partial shutdown of the government. Spending is being supported by the lowest unemployment rate in nearly 50 years, which is lifting wages.

The jump in consumer spending helped to offset some of the weakness from exports, which fell at a 5.2{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} rate last quarter, in a reversal of the strong growth experienced in the first quarter.

The plunge in exports caused a deterioration of the trade deficit. As result, trade subtracted 0.65 percentage point from GDP growth last quarter after contributing 0.73 percentage point in the January-March period.

The acceleration in consumer spending also helped businesses to whittle down an inventory overhang, leading to a smaller inventory build.

Inventory investment increased at a $71.7 billion rate, slowing from the first quarter’s $116.0 billion pace of increase. While inventories cut 0.86 percentage point from GDP growth in the second quarter, the smaller pace of stock accumulation is a potential boost to manufacturing.

Businesses have been placing fewer orders with factories while working through stockpiles of unsold goods, which contributed to undercutting manufacturing production. Inventories added 0.53 percentage point to GDP growth in the first quarter.

Business investment fell at 0.6{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} rate in the second quarter, the first contraction since the first quarter of 2016. It was pulled down by a 10.6{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} pace of decline in spending on structures, which includes oil and gas well drilling.

Spending on intellectual products, including research and development, increased. Business spending on equipment rebounded at a 0.7{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} rate in the second quarter. It is seen constrained by design problems at aerospace giant Boeing BA.N.

Boeing reported its biggest-ever quarterly loss on Wednesday due to the spiraling cost of resolving issues with its 737 MAX airplane and warned it might have to shut production of the grounded jet completely if it runs into new hurdles with global regulators to getting its best-selling aircraft back in the air.

The plane was grounded worldwide in March after two fatal crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia. Production of the aircraft has been reduced and deliveries suspended.

Growth in government investment accelerated, but spending on homebuilding contracted for a sixth straight quarter.

(Reuters) – Shares of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) fell 11 percent on Thursday and were set to knock off more than $5 billion in the electric carmaker’s market value, a day after it disappointed Wall Street by pushing its profit timeline once again.

Analysts also focused on the impact of shrinking margins, a key challenge for the company in delivering a profit consistently.

“For Tesla to be more than niche, one of the core challenges will be for Tesla to improve its gross margin profile,” a Credit Suisse analyst wrote in a research note.

Wedbush Securities cut its price target on the stock from $230 to $220, citing the softer margin profile.

The stock was down 11.34{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} at $234.84 before the opening bell, still 3{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} above the median price target of $227.5.

The delayed timeline on profitability also weighed on its $1.8 billion junk bond US166858275=, which debuted just shy of two years ago. In European trading, the bond dropped more than 2 full points in price, and its yield, which moves in the opposite direction, surged back above 8{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} for the first time since July 1.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Facebook Inc (FB.O) will pay a record-breaking $5 billion fine to resolve a government probe into its privacy practices and the social media giant will restructure its approach to privacy, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday.

The FTC voted 3-2 along party lines to adopt the settlement, which requires court approval, even as Democrats said the settlement did not go far enough or require a large enough fine.

“Despite repeated promises to its billions of users worldwide that they could control how personal information is shared Facebook undermined consumers’ choices,” said FTC Chairman Joe Simons, a Republican, in a statement.

But Democratic FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra said the penalty provided “blanket immunity” for Facebook executives “and no real restraints on Facebook’s business model” and does “not fix the core problems that led to these violations.”

Facebook declined to comment ahead of the settlement’s public release.

The FTC said that Facebook’s data policy was deceptive to “tens of millions” of people who used Facebook’s facial recognition tool and also violated its rules against deceptive practices when it did not disclose phone numbers collected to enable a security feature would be used for advertising.

Under the settlement, Facebook’s board will create an independent privacy committee that removes “unfettered control by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over decisions affecting user privacy.”

Facebook also agreed to exercise greater oversight over third-party apps.

Chopra and Democratic FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, who opposed the settlement, said the $5 billion penalty may be less than Facebook’s gains from violating users’ privacy.

“Until we address Facebook’s core financial incentives for risking our personal privacy and national security, we will not be able to prevent these problems from happening again,” Chopra said.

The FTC Republican majority argued the settlement “significantly diminishes Mr. Zuckerberg’s power — something no government agency, anywhere in the world, has thus far accomplished.”

The Republican commissioners led by Simons said if the FTC had gone to court “it is highly unlikely that any judge would have imposed a civil penalty even remotely close to this one.”

They called the settlement — in light of what the FTC might have been able to win in a court fight — “a complete home run.”

The Republican majority noted that Zuckerberg and other company executives will have to sign quarterly certifications attesting to the company’s privacy practices.

The FTC said Zuckerberg or others filing a false certification could face civil and criminal penalties.

Facebook also is barred from asking for email passwords to other services when consumers sign up.

Facebook is barred from using telephone numbers obtained in a security feature, like two-factor authentication, for advertising and must get user consent if it plans to use data from facial recognition technology.

FTC DECIDED TO SETTLE PROBE

The settlement stems from the company’s alleged violations of a 2012 FTC settlement order over privacy issues.

Slaughter said the FTC should have taken Facebook and Zuckerberg to court.

Slaughter also criticized the FTC’s decision to grant Facebook and its executives a release from liability for any claims that prior to June 12, 2019 it violated the FTC 2012 settlement as “far too broad” and said the FTC failed “to impose any substantive restrictions on Facebook’s collection and use of data from or about users.”

Chopra added that by “settling the commission — and the public — may never find out what Facebook knows… It is difficult to conclude that the commission got the better end of the bargain.”

The FTC has been investigating allegations Facebook inappropriately shared information belonging to 87 million users with the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

The FTC also said Wednesday that Cambridge’s former CEO Alexander Nix and former app developer Aleksandr Kogan, who worked with the company, had agreed to a settlement with the FTC that will restrict how they conduct business in the future.

The settlement comes a day after the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it was opening a broad investigation of major digital technology firms into whether they engage in anticompetitive practices, the strongest sign the Trump administration is stepping up its scrutiny of Big Tech.

The review will look into “whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

The Justice Department did not identify specific companies but said the review would consider concerns raised about “search, social media, and some retail services online” — an apparent reference to Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Facebook Inc (FB.O), and potentially Apple Inc (AAPL.O).

(Reuters) – Coca-Cola Co (KO.N) on Tuesday beat analysts’ estimate for quarterly profit and raised its organic revenue forecast for the full year, driven by demand for zero sugar soda and innovations, such as the Coca-Cola Plus Coffee.

The world’s biggest beverage maker has been responding to changing consumer tastes by moving beyond traditional sodas and offering drinks that are lower in sugar or come in new flavors.

Coca-Cola bought Britain-based Costa Coffee for $5.1 billion and recently rolled out ready-to-drink coffee in cans in the UK and a coffee based soda in several markets. The company plans to launch the beverages in other markets this year.

The beverage maker reported a 6{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} rise in second-quarter organic revenue, a keenly watched metric that gives sales growth excluding acquisitions and currency fluctuations.

Net revenue rose 6.1{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} to $10 billion in the second quarter ended June 28, a touch above the estimate of $9.99 billion, according IBES data from Refinitiv.

Net income attributable to the Atlanta, Georgia-based company rose to $2.61 billion, or 61 cents per share, from $2.32 billion, or 54 cents per share from a year ago.

Excluding one-time items, the company earned 63 cents per share, 2 cents above Wall Street’s estimates.

The company said it expected organic revenues to grow 5{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} in the whole of 2019, up from its previous projection of a about a 4{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} rise.

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) – Bayer AG (BAYGn.DE), facing an upcoming trial in St. Louis over allegations that its Roundup weed killer causes cancer, has recruited Missouri-based expert witnesses to make its case in a place where it has century-old roots but where juries often hit companies with huge damages.

Four expert witnesses Bayer is seeking to admit hail from Missouri universities, and some legal experts said the company is trying to clinch its first favorable Roundup verdict by emphasizing its reputation as a major local employer.

Bayer on Tuesday announced it would create an additional 500 “high-paying” jobs in the St. Louis area. The Bayer unit that makes the glyphosate-based herbicide, the former Monsanto Co, was founded in St. Louis in 1901. Monsanto employed 5,400 full-time employees in the St. Louis area as of May 2018, according to company statements.

The trial in St. Louis County Circuit Court, expected to begin on Aug. 19, was brought by Illinois resident Sharlean Gordon, who says she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after using Roundup for around 14 years at her home. It is the fourth trial over Roundup and the first one outside of California, where three juries hit Bayer with verdicts as large as $2 billion. Bayer is appealing those verdicts.

Bayer denies glyphosate or Roundup cause cancer, saying decades of studies have shown glyphosate to be safe. The company said it looked forward to presenting the scientific evidence to juries. It said the experts in the upcoming St. Louis trial are at the top of their field and were selected for their expertise, not their Missouri ties.

The Germany-based company has lost nearly 40 billion euros ($33.75 billion) in market valuation since the first Roundup jury verdict in August 2018. Bayer last month announced it had set up a committee to help resolve the litigation, saying it would “constructively engage” in court-mandated mediation talks.

NEW WITNESSES

Bayer has said in court papers and hearings that juries in California’s traditionally liberal Bay Area, where the first three trials took place, were unfairly influenced by news coverage of the trials and harbored negative attitudes toward Monsanto in part because of its development of genetically modified seeds.

The company’s experts in those cases came mostly from states other than California. In the St. Louis trial, Bayer is so far seeking to admit a total of 14 scientific expert witnesses. None previously testified in the Roundup litigation.

Of the more than 13,400 Roundup claims nationwide that have yet to go to trial, about 75{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} have been filed in St. Louis city or county courts, according to plaintiffs’ lawyers. Those courts have a history of issuing large punitive damages against companies and have often been criticized by business groups for issuing favorable plaintiffs rulings.

By suing in the county where Bayer’s crop science business is headquartered, plaintiffs can also take advantage of procedural rules allowing them to compel live testimony from executives who work locally. In the California trials, jurors only saw video depositions of Monsanto executives.

David Noll, a professor at Rutgers Law School, said Bayer appeared to be hiring local experts to appeal to St. Louis jurors. “(They) are not seen as hired guns, flying in from afar, but … can explain the case in a way local jurors understand,” Noll said.

But Alexandra Lahav, a law professor at the University of Connecticut, said Bayer could simply be using new experts that the company thinks would have a better rapport with the jury and “not necessarily because the experts are local.”

Counting on a more favorable jury pool in a company’s backyard is not a new tactic.

New Jersey-based Merck & Co (MRK.N), which in the early 2000s faced thousands of lawsuits by patients over its Vioxx painkiller, won several trials in New Jersey, which plaintiffs lawyers at the time attributed to the company’s strong ties to the state.

Merck in 2013 settled some 27,000 Vioxx claims for $4.85 billion.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Members of Ryanair’s Irish pilot union are to decide next week whether to join British colleagues in holding a ballot on strike action, according to a memo distributed to members.

Ryanair pilots in Britain, the Irish airline’s largest market, last week announced a ballot that could lead to strike action in late August, citing disagreements over pay and conditions.

Ryanair pilots who are members of the Irish Airline Pilots Association (IALPA) will meet in Dublin on Tuesday to decide whether to hold a ballot for “industrial action up to and including strike action”, with voting to begin on or before Thursday, July 25, the memo said.

It did not say when possible strike action would take place.

Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost carrier, suffered a series of damaging strikes last year after the carrier bowed to pressure in late 2017 to recognize unions for the first time.

Management say significant progress has been made since, with collective labor agreements concluded with a number of pilot unions throughout Europe.

But IALPA said in the memo that management had failed to agree pay, terms and conditions for directly employed pilots. The British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) last week said issues included pensions, maternity benefits and a fair, transparent pay structure.

Ryanair, which says it offers better conditions than low-cost rivals for Boeing pilots, declined to comment on the union action.

On Tuesday, Ryanair said it had been forced to halve its growth plans for 2020 due to delays in the delivery of Boeing’s (BA.N) grounded 737 MAX jet and planned to start talks with airports and unions about downsizing or closing some operations from November 2019.

(Reuters) – CBS Corp (CBS.N) and AT&T Inc (T.N) failed to renew their contact, resulting in millions of DirecTV subscribers losing access to CBS programming.

CBS television stations in over a dozen U.S. cities, including New York and Los Angeles, went dark for DirecTV customers effective 0200 ET (0600 GMT), CBS said in a statement on Saturday.

“While we continue to negotiate in good faith and hope that AT&T agrees to fair terms soon, this loss of CBS programming could last a long time,” CBS added, as the companies blamed one another for the deal’s collapse.

CBS, the network with hit shows like “NCIS” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” is directing customers to a website called “KeepCBS.com”, where they are urged to mail, call or post messages onto DirecTV’s social media pages.

In a separate statement AT&T said that they “were willing to continue to negotiate and also offered to pay CBS an unprecedented rate increase.”

In March, AT&T renewed its contract with Viacom Inc (VIAB.O) avoiding a blackout of MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central for users of the telecom carrier’s pay TV service DirecTV.

CBS had informed its users on Tuesday that they should be prepared for a blackout from June 19, unless an agreement was reached with AT&T.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) – In the depths of the financial crisis, when the world was shunning debt and battening down for the worst, city officials here zagged in what seemed a preposterous direction and spent $600 million on a new convention center.

A decade later thousands of new hotel rooms soar over the site, including a 33-story Marriott that is just a tiny part of the investment and jobs boom that has made Nashville an envy of other cities trying to find their footing, an image cemented when Amazon announced it would put a 5,000-job logistics center here.

“Look at the skyline, see the activity – whether it is a Monday night or a Saturday night – the city is thriving,” said Tom Turner, president of the Nashville Downtown Partnership.

It is in many ways a positive story of how new winners can emerge even after a devastating recession. But it also represents a major fault line in the recovery that followed: Winning places like Nashville have won big, often for reasons that can’t obviously or quickly be replicated, while much of the rest of the country has struggled to stay even or slipped behind.

It is a schism that helped elevate Donald Trump to the presidency with his massive support in less populated and slower-growing areas. The divide is also preoccupying U.S. central bankers and economists worried about what happens if large portions of the country never bounce back.

“The superstar cities have pulled so far away,” said MIT economist Simon Johnson. He recently called for a $100 billion annual federal investment in basic research centered in cities like Rochester, New York, that have the base of universities and college graduates to compete as innovation hubs.

“There is no entity other than the federal government that has the capacity to move the needle on this.”

WHERE THE GROWTH IS … AND ISN’T

The U.S. economy entered a second decade of growth this month, marking the longest expansion on record.

In many ways the country has seemingly recovered from a 2007-2009 recession that was the worst downturn since the 1930s. Unemployment is near a 50-year low, household income has been rising, and the country is at a point in the business cycle when workers typically see their most robust gains.

But a Reuters analysis of federal data shows just how unevenly the spoils of growth have been divided.

In a ranking of 378 metropolitan areas by how their share of national employment changed from 2010 to 2017, 40{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} of the new jobs generated during that time went to the top 20 places, along with a similar share of the additional wages.

Those cities represent only about a quarter of the country’s population and are concentrated in the fast-growing southern and coastal states. None were in the northeast, and only two were in the “rust belt” interior – Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a rebounding Detroit.

Nashville ranked 11th on the list, keeping company with other southern towns like Charlotte and Atlanta, and the usual fast-growth suspects like Seattle and San Francisco.

The drop from there is steep. The next set of 20 cities captured about 10{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} of the jobs created from 2010 through 2017, close to their roughly 7.5{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} share of the population.

At the bottom, 251 cities, many spread across the heartland and in the industrial northeast, lost job share.

It is a map that hews close to Trump’s election results: Of 221 counties that voted for President Barack Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016, only three are in the metropolitan areas that won the most job share. Sixty-two are part of metro areas where the share of national employment declined.

MUSIC CITY MIRACLE? OR HAPPY ACCIDENT?

Among the decade’s winners, many have an obvious story to tell – Houston as a long-time oil town amid a boom in U.S. energy production or San Francisco as the epicenter of all things tech.

But interviews with entrepreneurs and officials in Nashville point to a mix of factors behind its success, including some that were out of the city’s control, such as the state’s lack of an income tax, and others associated with its unique local assets.

The once-in-a-generation decision to gamble on the convention center shows the importance of political leadership, something Federal Reserve officials and economists have begun to see as central to a local jurisdiction’s success. But it also depended on the city’s celebrated country music roots and seven-night-a-week year-round party scene as the draw for major conferences and trade shows, something that can’t simply be reproduced by other municipalities.

With rock-bottom interest rates and companies competing aggressively for building work, “you could never build at that price again,” said Turner of the convention center. “It gave the city a different way of looking at things. Coming out of the recession you had new momentum.”

For some cities, the presence of legacy companies positioned in growth industries like healthcare can give a boost. But for others, whose anchor firms may have been in industries that have fled overseas, such as textiles, the hill is harder to climb.

Private sector jobs in Nashville surged 31{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} since national employment bottomed in 2010, from 622,000 to around 820,000 through 2017, double the national job growth rate of around 15{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}, according to federal data.

The 40 top job-generating metro areas saw employment expand 23{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} during those years. Jobs in other metro areas grew around 11{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}, and in counties outside of metro areas the job growth rate was around 4.5{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48}.

WHAT’S LUCK GOT TO DO WITH IT?

And there are quirks of history. Nashville’s downtown zoning rules had been notoriously strict. When they were eased in the 1990s, the result was fast growth from a low base, as builders turned empty land into new neighborhoods.

It came off as a boom, but in fact it was more “playing catch up” after years of underbuilding, said Jay Turner, whose MarketStreet Enterprises developed the now trendy Gulch neighborhood around an abandoned rail yard.

Jay Turner, who is not related to Tom Turner, said Nashville “was underdeveloped because of the zoning” that had put a premium on offices and parking garages.

That type of surge can only happen once, and not at all in cities that are already filled in.

Turner said it created a dynamic where “people say we need exposure in Nashville.”

Fed officials are taking the gap in economic outcomes among cities and regions seriously. Providing time for “catch up” among lagging demographic groups and areas of the country is one of the reasons behind policymakers’ decision to leave interest rates low and to consider cutting them in coming weeks.

Atlanta Federal Reserve bank president Raphael Bostic has made the issue a priority in his travels and research, puzzling over why places in his district like Atlanta have surged ahead while others have not.

It’s not clear, he said, that there’s a uniform policy mix that could easily spread the wealth.

“Every city has its unique narrative as to why it got to where it got,” Bostic said. “I don’t think there is a general formula that if you hit each point at a certain level you guarantee an outcome.”