Search Results
Working Paper
The Dual U.S. Labor Market Uncovered
Aggregate U.S. labor market dynamics are well approximated by a dual labor market supplemented with a third, predominantly, home-production segment. We uncover this structure by estimating a Hidden Markov Model, a machine-learning method. The different market segments are identified through (in-)equality constraints on labor market transition probabilities. This method yields time series of stocks and flows for the three segments for 1980-2021. Workers in the primary sector, who make up around 55 percent of the population, are almost always employed and rarely experience unemployment. The ...
Working Paper
The Role of Observed and Unobserved Heterogeneity in the Duration of Unemployment Spells
This paper studies the degree to which observable and unobservable worker characteristics account for the variation in the aggregate duration of unemployment. I model the distribution of unobserved worker heterogeneity as time varying to capture the interaction of latent attributes with changes in labor-market conditions. Unobserved heterogeneity is the main explanation for the duration dependence of unemployment hazards. Both cyclical and low-frequency variations in the mean duration of unemployment are mainly driven by one subgroup: workers who, for unobserved reasons, stay unemployed for a ...
Working Paper
Relative prices and pure inflation since the mid-1990s
This paper decomposes consumer price inflation into pure inflation, relative price inflation, and idiosyncratic inflation by estimating a dynamic factor model á la Reis and Watson (2010) on a data set of 146 monthly disaggregated prices from 1995 to 2019. We find that pure inflation is the trend around which PCE price inflation fluctuates, while relative price inflation and idiosyncratic inflation drive the fluctuation of PCE price inflation around the trend. Unlike Reis and Watson, we find that labor market slack is the main driver of pure inflation and that energy prices account for ...
Working Paper
(Re-)Connecting Inflation and the Labor Market: A Tale of Two Curves
We propose an empirical framework in which shocks to worker reallocation, aggregate activity, and labor supply drive the joint dynamics of labor market outcomes and inflation, and where reallocation shocks take two forms depending on whether they result from quits or from job loss. In order to link our approach with previous theoretical and empirical work, we extend the procedure for estimating a Bayesian sign-restricted VAR so that priors can be directly imposed on the VAR's impact matrix. We find that structural shocks that shift the Beveridge curve have different effects on inflation. ...
Working Paper
Disagreement About the Term Structure of Inflation Expectations
We develop a model of the individual term structure of inflation expectations across forecasting horizons. Using the Survey of Professional Forecasters, we decompose disagreement about inflation expectations into individuals' long-term beliefs, private information, and public information. We find that in normal times, long-horizon disagreement is predominantly driven by individuals' long-term beliefs, while short-horizon disagreement stems from private information. During economic downturns, heterogeneous reactions to public information become a key driver of disagreement at all horizons. ...
Discussion Paper
Index of Common Inflation Expectations
Data that are potentially informative about the inflation expectations of economic agents have grown over recent years and now include information from a wide variety of surveys as well as from financial instruments. These data differ along several key dimensions, including the type of economic agent, the horizon of the expectation, the source of data (survey versus market-based measures), and the associated inflation concept, which can make the co-movement of various expectations measures difficult to discern.
Working Paper
Precautionary On-the-Job Search over the Business Cycle
This paper provides new evidence for cyclicality in the job-search effort of employed workers, on-the-job search (OJS) intensity, in the United States using American Time Use Survey and various cyclical indicators. We find that OJS intensity is countercyclical along both the extensive and intensive margins, with the countercyclicality of extensive margin stronger than the other. An increase in the layoffs rate and the deterioration in expectations about future personal financial situation are the primary factors that raise OJS intensity. Our findings suggest that the precautionary motive in ...
Working Paper
Effects of Monetary Policy on Household Expectations: The Role of Homeownership
We study the role of homeownership in the effectiveness of monetary policy on households' expectations. Empirically, we find that homeowners revise down their near-term inflation expectations and their optimism about future labor market conditions in response to a rise in mortgage rates, while renters are less likely to do so. We further show that the monetary-policy component of mortgage-rate changes creates the difference in expectation revisions between homeowners and renters. This result suggests that homeowners are attentive to news on interest rates and adjust their expectations ...
Working Paper
The Dual U.S. Labor Market Uncovered
Aggregate U.S. labor market dynamics are well approximated by a dual labor market supplemented with a third, predominantly, home-production segment. We uncover this structure by estimating a Hidden Markov Model, a machine-learning method. The different market segments are identified through (in-)equality constraints on labor market transition probabilities. This method yields time series of stocks and flows for the three segments for 1980-2021. Workers in the primary sector, who make up around 55 percent of the population, are almost always employed and rarely experience unemployment. The ...
Working Paper
Dynamic Beveridge Curve Accounting
We develop a dynamic decomposition of the empirical Beveridge curve, i.e., the level of vacancies conditional on unemployment. Using a standard model, we show that three factors can shift the Beveridge curve: reduced-form matching efficiency, changes in the job separation rate, and out-of-steady-state dynamics. We find that the shift in the Beveridge curve during and after the Great Recession was due to all three factors, and each factor taken separately had a large effect. Comparing the pre-2010 period to the post-2010 period, a fall in matching efficiency and out-of-steady-state dynamics ...