Search Results
Discussion Paper
Using credit reporting agency data to assess the link between the Community Reinvestment Act and consumer credit outcomes
We use a regression discontinuity design to investigate the effect of the Community Reinvestment Act on consumer credit outcomes using data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York?s Consumer Credit Panel database (Equifax data) for the years 2004 to 2012. A bank?s activities in census tracts with median family incomes less than 80 percent of the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) median family income count toward a lending institution?s compliance with CRA rules. Assuming census tracts with median incomes at 79.9 percent of the MSA median are the same as census tracts at 80 percent?except ...
Journal Article
Economic perspectives on childhood obesity
Obesity rates in the U.S. have skyrocketed in the last 30 years. Among adults, obesity rates more than doubled from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. Children obesity rates nearly tripled over the same period. This article discusses why obesity is of interest from an economic perspective. It them examines changes in children's lives, particularly the increase in maternal employment, that may have contributed to increases in children's weight.
Journal Article
Obesity, disability, and the labor force
Men of prime working age have increased their non-employment rates over the past 30 years, and disability rates have also increased. Many have noted that this increase has happened against a backdrop of generally improving health in the U.S. population. However, obesity has increased substantially over this period. The authors find that changes in the characteristics of male workers?including age, race, ethnicity, and obesity levels?can explain a large portion (around 40 percent) of the increase in non-employment.
Newsletter
Small Business Employment in the Pandemic Era and Beyond
In this article, we study the creation of small firms, with a focus on the post-March 2020 period (i.e., after the start of the global Covid-19 pandemic).1 We document the increase in new small firms, as well as the contributions of small firms to employment growth, during this period. Our analysis shows that, despite the increase in the number of small businesses, the share of employees working for small firms is considerably lower than in large businesses and is, in fact, declining.
Newsletter
Job loss: causes, consequences, and policy responses
From 2001 to 2003, 5.3 million workers were displaced. Beyond quantifying the numbers of jobs lost lie important questions about gains and losses from these changes and what policies may affect them. These questions will be addressed at an upcoming Chicago Fed conference.
Newsletter
Assessing the impact of job loss on workers and firms
Many economists agree that the United States? openness to competition and technological change raises our living standards, but sometimes results in job losses. This article summarizes ?Job Loss: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Responses,? a conference which was cosponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Joyce Foundation.
Newsletter
Immigration and the Labor Market in the Post-Pandemic Recovery
Standard estimates based on the main household survey used to shed light on labor markets—the Current Population Survey (CPS)—suggest that after a significant drop during the pandemic, recent rapid growth has brought the foreign-born population in the United States back to, or above, levels predicted by the pre-pandemic trend. However, we document that the weighting factors used to make the CPS nationally representative have recently displayed some unusual movements and conclude that standard estimates of the foreign-born population may currently be too high.
Journal Article
Childhood obesity: an issue for public health advocates, researchers, and community development practitioners
Obesity rates for U.S. children have risen precipitously over the past 20 years. According to data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys from 1999?2002, 15 percent of children on average, ages 2?19 are obese. With little evidence that individual weight loss programs can solve the problem, attention is increasingly turning to the environment in which children live, in an effort to understand both the causes of and potential solutions to childhood obesity. Drawing on recent research, this article provides an overview of childhood obesity trends from the 1970s to 2002, ...
Working Paper
Not working: demographic changes, policy changes, and the distribution of weeks (not) worked
From 1978 to 2000 the fraction of adult men in full-year non-employment increased from 17.1 to 21.6 percent. Previous research focused on the role of disability insurance policy and wage structure changes to explain this increase. Using Current Population Surveys from 1979 to 2003 we assess how much of the changes in full-year non-employment can be explained by demographic changes, possibly linked to health. With our empirical strategy we examine how 1978 to 2000 changes in demographic characteristics would have changed the distribution of weeks worked if policies and macroeconomic conditions ...