Search Results
Overemployed Workers? Trends on Multiple Jobholders
After tumbling during the pandemic, the share of employed people holding more than one job has recovered to its pre-pandemic level.
Compensation Patterns of Overemployed Workers
An analysis showed U.S. workers with multiple jobs had on average slightly higher annual earnings but lower hourly pay than workers with a single job.
Journal Article
Withdrawal history, private information, and bank runs
This paper provides a simple two-depositor, two-stage model to understand how a bank?s withdrawal history affects an individual?s decision about withdrawals, which could possibly trigger bank runs. Individual depositors have private information about their personal consumption types and receive noisy private signals about the quality of the bank?s portfolio. Depositors make publicly observable withdrawal decisions in sequence. Computed examples indicate that the optimal contract contingent on withdrawal histories can tolerate bank runs. These runs are triggered by unfavorable signals about a ...
Journal Article
Intertemporal discounting and policy selection
The choice of the intertemporal discount rate affects the measurement of the tax burden of different age cohorts. Small changes in the discount rate affect not only the magnitude of the measured changes, but also the ranking of policies using that metric. The authors illustrate this problem in the context of neutral Social Security reforms. By construction, these policies do not change allocations; hence, they also do not change welfare. However, depending on the choice of the discount rate, one could reach different (and possibly opposite) conclusions regarding the desirability of such ...
Journal Article
Predicting the Yield Curve Inversions that Predict Recessions: Part 2
Expectations of housing market conditions should be considered when forecasting recessions.
Journal Article
Putting Recent Inflation in Historical Context
Prices for many items were depressed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we see the effect in current inflation reports.
Journal Article
Household Debt and the Great Recession
In the mid-2000s, household private debt reached a new level 1.2 times larger than personal income? before collapsing during the Great Recession. This paper uses microeconomic data to document the main changes in personal debt and explore the behavior of debt across generations over two periods: before and after the Great Recession. Special emphasis is placed on participation rates by category of debt (the extensive margin), volume borrowed (the intensive margin), and default behavior. Key findings include that between 1999 and 2013 the fraction of individuals with only unsecured (e.g., ...
Journal Article
Reconstructing the Great Recession
This article uses dynamic equilibrium input-output models to evaluate the contribution of the construction sector to the Great Recession and the expansion preceeding it. Through production interlinkages and demand complementarities, shifts in housing demand can propagate to other economic sectors and generate a large and sustained aggregate cycle.
Ready for the Pandemic? Household Debt before the COVID-19 Shock
Before the pandemic, shares of delinquencies had already been growing in consumer finance loans, credit card debt, student loans and auto loans. And delinquencies can vary greatly among states.
Journal Article
A primer on social security systems and reforms
This article reviews the characteristics of different social security systems. Many configurations arise depending on the nature of a system?s funding and determination of benefits. Many reforms propose changing the U.S. Social Security system. The authors focus their analysis of the transition from a pay-as-you-go to a fully funded system. They argue that the key component of any reform is the treatment of the implicit liabilities of a country?s social security system. The welfare gains accruing to some cohorts as a result of such reforms usually stem from either a partial or complete ...