When it comes to gauging the health of an economy, the experts prefer hard, verifiable statistics. But if there is one source of information on the U.S. economy that still draws close attention despite being thin on crunchable numbers, it’s the largely-anecdotal survey compiled eight times a year by the Federal Reserve. The next report, known as the Beige Book, will be released on Wednesday. It includes assessments of local conditions from each of the 12 regional Fed banks, which often underline trends that will show up later in the data. The latest version is expected to show that the broad U.S. economy continues ... (full story)