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Working Paper
The Unequal Distribution of Economic Education : A Report on the Race, Ethnicity, and Gender of Economics Majors at US Colleges and Universities
The distribution of economic education among US college graduates is quite unequal: female and underrepresented minority undergraduates, collectively, major in economics at 0.36 the rate that white, non-Hispanic male students do. This paper makes a four-part contribution to address this imbalance. First and foremost, we provide detailed comparative data at the institution level to provoke and inform the attention of economists and senior administrators at colleges and universities, among others. Second, we establish a definition of full inclusion in economic education on college and ...
Working Paper
Why do firms offer risky defined benefit pension plans?
Even risky pension sponsors could offer essentially riskless pension promises by contributing a sufficient level of resources to their pension trust funds and by investing those resources in fixed-income securities designed to deliver their payoffs just as pension obligations are coming due. However, almost no firm has chosen to fund its plan in this manner. We study the optimal funding choice for plan sponsors by developing a simple model of pension financing in which the total compensation offered to workers must clear the labor market. We find that if workers understand the implications of ...
Working Paper
Interactions between the seasonal and business cycles in production and inventories
This paper shows that in several U.S. manufacturing industries, the seasonal variability of production and inventories varies with the state of the business cycle. We present a simple model which implies that if firms reduce the seasonal variability of their production as the economy strengthens, and they either hold constant or increase the stock of inventories they bring into the high-production seasons of the year, then they must face upward-sloping and convex marginal production cost curves. We conclude that firms in a number of industries face upward-sloping and convex ...
Discussion Paper
Who is Being Trained in Economics? A New Interactive Website for Exploring the Race, Ethnicity, and Gender of Economics Majors at U.S. Colleges and Universities
This note provides a brief users guide for the new interactive website that allows visitors to explore data on who is being trained in economics at each college and university in the U.S.
Working Paper
The opportunistic approach to disinflation
This paper explores the theoretical foundations of a new approach to monetary policy. Proponents of this approach hold that when inflation is moderate but still above the long-run objective, the Fed should not take deliberate anti-inflation action, but rather should wait for external circumstances-such as favorable supply shocks and unforeseen recessions-to deliver the desired reduction in inflation. While waiting for such circumstances to arise, the Fed should aggressively resist incipient increases in inflation. This strategy has come to be known as "the opportunistic approach to ...