Search Results
Working Paper
Changing Stability in U.S. Employment Relationships: A Tale of Two Tails
We examine how the distribution of employment tenure has changed in aggregate and for various demographic groups, drawing links to trends in job stability and satisfaction. The fraction of workers with short tenure (less than a year) has been falling since at least the mid-1990s, consistent with the decline in job changing documented over this period. The decline in short-tenure was widespread across demographic groups, industry, and occupation. It appears to be associated with fewer workers cycling among briefly-held jobs and coincides with an increase in perceived job security among short ...
Discussion Paper
Differences in Rent Growth by Income 1985-2019 and Implications for Real Income Inequality
Large and growing income differentials in the US have generated a mounting interest in income inequality among economists. The average income in the highest quintile of households increased by about 70 percent in real terms from 1985 to 2019, whereas the average income of the lowest quintile only increased by 20 percent during this period (Semega et al. 2020).
Working Paper
Does tax policy affect executive compensation? evidence from postwar tax reforms
Evidence since the 1980s suggests that the level and structure of executive compensation in U.S. public corporations are largely unresponsive to tax incentives. However, the relative tax advantage of different forms of pay has been relatively small during this period. Using a sample of top executives in large firms from 1946 to 2005, we find little response of salaries, qualified stock options, long-term incentive pay, or bonuses paid after retirement to changes in tax rates on labor income--even though tax rates were significantly higher and more heterogeneous across individuals in the first ...
Working Paper
Declining migration within the US: the role of the labor market
We examine explanations for the secular decline in interstate migration since the 1980s. After showing that demographic and socioeconomic factors can account for little of this decrease, we present evidence suggesting that it is related to a downward trend in labor market transitions--i.e. a decline in the fraction of workers moving from job to job, changing industry, and changing occupation--that occurred over the same period. We explore a number of reasons why these flows have diminished over time, including changes in the distribution of job opportunities across space, polarization in the ...
Discussion Paper
How Can We Measure the Value of a Home? Comparing Model-Based Estimates with Owner-Occupant Estimates
In this note, we assess whether AVM estimates or owner valuations are better at approximating the market value of a home.
Working Paper
Changing Stability in U.S. Employment Relationships: A Tale of Two Tails
We confront two seemingly-contradictory observations about the US labor market: the rate at which workers change employers has declined since the 1980s, yet there is a commonly expressed view that long-term employment relationships are more difficult to attain. We reconcile these observations by examining how the distribution of employment tenure has changed in aggregate and for various demographic groups. We show that the fraction of workers with short tenure (less than a year) has been falling since the 1980s, consistent with the decline in job changing. Meanwhile, the fraction of workers ...
Discussion Paper
Business Investor Activity in the Single-Family-Housing Market
We discuss recent purchase activity by business investors in the market for single-family homes and consider the possible benefits and risks of this activity.
Working Paper
The housing crisis and state and local government tax revenue: five channels
State and local government tax revenues dropped steeply following the most severe housing market contraction since the Great Depression. We identify five main channels through which the housing market affects state and local tax revenues: property tax revenues, transfer tax revenues, sales tax revenues (including a direct effect through construction materials and an indirect effect through the link between housing wealth and consumption), and personal income tax revenues. We find that property tax revenues do not tend to decrease following house price declines. We conclude that the resilience ...
Working Paper
Measuring Mortgage Credit Availability : A Frontier Estimation Approach
We construct a new measure of mortgage credit availability that describes the maximum amount obtainable by a borrower of given characteristics. We estimate this "loan frontier" using mortgage originations data from 2001 to 2014 and show that it reflects a binding borrowing constraint. Our estimates reveal that the expansion of mortgage credit during the housing boom was substantial for all borrowers, not only for low-score or low-income borrowers. The contraction was most pronounced for low-score borrowers. Using variation in the frontier across metropolitan areas over time, we show that ...
Working Paper
Long-Term Vacancy in the United States
Because housing is durable, the housing supply is slow to adapt to declines in demand. This paper uses long-term vacancy--defined as nonseasonal housing units that have been vacant for an unusually long period of time--to quantify the extent of excess supply in the housing market. I find that long-term vacancy is less than 2 percent of all nonseasonal housing units and accounts for only one quarter of the aggregate increase in nonseasonal vacancy from 2001 to 2011. Thus, at the national level, excess supply is considerably less extensive than indicated by traditional measures of vacancy. ...