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Discussion Paper
The Anatomy of Labor Demand Pre‑ and Post‑COVID
Has labor demand changed since the COVID-19 pandemic? In this post, we leverage detailed data on the universe of U.S. online job listings to study the dynamics of labor demand pre- and post-COVID. We find that there has been a significant shift in listings out of the central cities and into the “fringe” portion of large metro areas, smaller metro areas, and rural areas. We also find a substantial decline in job listings in computer and mathematical and business and financial operations occupations, and a corresponding increase in job openings in sales, office and administrative support, ...
Discussion Paper
How Large Are Inflation Revisions? The Difficulty of Monitoring Prices in Real Time
With prices quickly going up after the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation releases have rarely been as present in the public debate as in recent years. However, since inflation estimates are frequently revised, how precise are the real-time data releases? In this Liberty Street Economics post, we investigate the size and nature of revisions to inflation. We find that inflation estimates for a given month can change substantially as subsequent data vintages are released. As an example, consider March 2009. With the economy contracting amid the Global Financial Crisis, the twelve-month inflation rate ...
Discussion Paper
How Much Does Immigration Data Explain the Employment‑Gap Puzzle?
A puzzling feature of official U.S. employment statistics in recent years has been the increase in the gap between the nonfarm payroll and household employment numbers. This discrepancy is not trivial. From the end of 2021 though the end of 2024, net job gains in the payroll survey were 3.6 million larger than in the household survey. In this Liberty Street Economics post, we investigate one potential explanation for the emergence of this gap: a sharp rise in undocumented immigration during the post-COVID period that would be differentially reflected in the two surveys. We leverage ...