Reports

“Startups make up a relatively small fraction of the total stock of firms, but there is a tremendous amount of heterogeneity among them, characterized by their “up-or-out” dynamics: Only a handful of startups are fortunate enough to reap the benefits of their innovations, and their success drives aggregate outcomes such as employment, productivity and economic…

“One of the best-known measures of the labor market’s performance is the unemployment rate, which is a key economic indicator.” “You may have seen that the U.S. unemployment rate in April 2020 peaked at 14.7% amid COVID-19 containment measures. And maybe you’ve seen news reports about the January 2023 unemployment rate, which the Bureau of…

“For construction workers at least, the days of outsized wage increases may not be over quite yet. According to the model, construction wages could outpace the overall average in the short run as the construction wage premium partially recovers toward its pre-pandemic level.” “But many factors could complicate how wages actually unfold: This simple model…

“More broadly, we would like to emphasize the clear implications of the work presented here with regard to current and future monetary policy deliberations. As noted by John Cochrane (quoted in Steelman et al., 2013, p.36), “The prevailing theory of inflation these days has nothing to do with money or transactions: the Fed sets interest…

“This paper provides causal evidence that terms of trade shocks do impact exchange rates. Specifically, in keeping with standard theory, export price increases cause exchange rate appreciations (and vice versa). The New Zealand setting serves as a well-identified natural experiment, but the result is important to all countries whose exports rely on a small number…

“The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.4 percent in January. Categories which increased in January include the shelter, motor vehicle insurance, recreation, apparel, and household furnishings and operations indexes. The indexes for used cars and trucks, medical care, and airline fares were among those that decreased over the month.” “The shelter…

“Rents are an important component of consumer expenditures. Recent surges in rent inflation have led to concerns that overall inflation might stay persistently high despite tightening of monetary policy. We present evidence that monetary policy tightening is effective for reducing rent inflation, although the full impact takes time to materialize. A policy tightening equivalent to…

“In this Commentary, we show that the labor market recovery from the COVID-19 recession has been uneven across space and occupations. In particular, denser metropolitan areas and those that imposed stricter measures to contain the spread of COVID-19, according to Oxford’s stringency index, have seen slower recovery on employment levels and labor force participation. While…

“The two figures are reminders that, in trying to understand the effects of inflation (either in the short run or the long run), one must keep in mind that price increases are not even across different categories of expenditures.” “In addition, inflation masks changes in relative prices, which may affect people’s spending decisions regardless of…

“The rise in anti-trade policies and retaliatory actions in recent years has motivated us to ask the question: What are the distributional consequences of global tariffs?” To this end, we have studied the distributional effects of the 2018 tariff increases in an overlapping generations Ricardian trade model with uninsurable income risk, incomplete asset markets, capital-skill…