Search Results
Working Paper
The aggregate implications of individual labor supply heterogeneity
This paper examines the Frisch elasticity at the extensive margin of labor supply in an economy consistent with the observed dispersion in average employment rates across individuals. An incomplete markets economy with indivisible labor is presented where agents differ in their disutility of labor and market skills. The model's key parameters are estimated using indirect inference with panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of the Youth-NLSY. The estimated model implies an elasticity of aggregate employment of 0.71. A simple decomposition reveals that labor disutility differences, ...
Journal Article
KC Fed LMCI Implies the Labor Market Is Closer to a Full Recovery than the Unemployment Rate Alone Suggests
By consolidating information from a broad range of labor market variables, the Kansas City Fed Labor Market Conditions Indicators (LMCI) provide a consistent gauge of labor market tightness. Adjusting the unemployment rate to incorporate information from the LMCI suggests the labor market is closer to a full recovery than the unemployment rate alone implies.
Journal Article
The KC Fed LMCI Momentum Indicator Suggests Monetary Policy Is Beginning to Weigh on Labor Markets
The Federal Open Market Committee has been quickly raising the federal funds rate to lower inflation. However, services inflation remains high, supported by a tight labor market with high wage growth. Recent readings in the LMCI momentum indicator suggest monetary policy tightening is beginning to weigh on labor markets, which may eventually lead to lower services inflation and lower inflation overall.
Working Paper
Consumption in the Great Recession: The Financial Distress Channel
During the Great Recession, the collapse of consumption across the US varied greatly but systematically with house-price declines. Our message is that household financial health matters for understanding this relationship. Two facts are essential for our finding: (1) the decline in house prices led to an increase in household financial distress (FD) prior to the decline in income during the recession, and (2) at the zip-code level, the prevalence of FD prior to the recession was positively correlated with house-price declines at the onset of the recession. We measure the power of the ...
Working Paper
Financial Distress and Macroeconomic Risks
This paper investigates how, and how much, household financial distress (FD), arising from allowing debts to go unpaid, matters for the aggregate and cross-sectional consumption responses to macroeconomic risk. Through a battery of structural models, we show that FD can affect consumption responses through three channels: (1) as another margin of adjustment to shocks (direct channel); (2) because its persistence implies a significant degree of preference heterogeneity (indirect channel); and (3) because it can exacerbate macroeconomic risks whenever it is more severe in the hardest-hit ...
Journal Article
KC Fed LMCI Suggests Recent Inflation Is Not Due to the Tight Labor Market
A tight labor market tends to raise wages and lower unemployment, but an overly tight labor market can cause inflation. Labor market momentum, as measured by the Kansas City Fed Labor Market Conditions Indicators (LMCI), can signal whether the current level of activity in labor markets is inflationary.
Journal Article
The shadow labor supply and its implications for the unemployment rate
The number of people wanting work, but not looking for a job, has swelled in recent years. However, their flow rate back into unemployment has been declining, so they will likely only have a modest impact on the unemployment rate.
Journal Article
The shadow labor supply and its implications for the unemployment rate
In the wake of the Great Recession there has been a sharp rise in the number of people who indicate they want a job, but are not actively seeking one. This group, on the periphery of the labor market, may be viewed as a "shadow labor supply." Since they are not actively seeking work, they are not counted by the government as unemployed and not considered part of the labor force. But if many start seeking jobs as the economy recovers, the unemployment rate could rise or at least slow its descent. Davig and Mustre-del-Ro analyze possible flow rates from this group and other non-employed ...
Journal Article
Corporate Profits Contributed a Lot to Inflation in 2021 but Little in 2022—A Pattern Seen in Past Economic Recoveries
Corporate profits rose quickly in 2021 along with inflation, raising concerns about corporations driving up prices to increase profits. Although corporate profits indeed contributed to inflation in 2021, their contribution fell in 2022. This pattern is not unusual: in previous economic recoveries, corporate profits were the main contributor to inflation in the first year and displaced by costs in the second year.
Working Paper
Job duration and the cleansing and sullying effects of recessions
A central question in economics is how business cycles affect the allocation of resources. Focusing on the labor market, an unresolved issue is whether recessions lead to above or below average productive arrangements. Typical models of the labor market imply that recessions cleanse the labor market as low quality employer-employee matches are destroyed and only exceptionally high quality matches are created. These models, however, ignore the potential sullying effect of recessions through on-the-job search, i.e. the process by which workers transit between jobs without an intervening spell ...