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Journal Article
Information and Communications Technology Spending and City Size
Firms in big cities are spending more on information and communications technology than firms in small cities, a likely cause of the growing economic divide between big and small U.S. cities.
Journal Article
Inflation and Shipping Costs
Imports that are more reliant on ocean freight have seen higher import price inflation since the start of the pandemic.
Journal Article
Childhood Income Volatility
Rising volatility in family income suggests that government efforts such as the monthly payment of the child tax credit may be appropriate.
Working Paper
The Geography of Business Dynamism and Skill Biased Technical Change
This paper seeks to explain several key components of the growing regional disparities in the U.S. since 1980: big cities saw a larger increase in the relative wages and relative supply of skilled workers, and a smaller decline in business dynamism. These trends can be explained by differences across cities in the extent to which firms adopt new skill-biased technologies. With the introduction of a new skill-biased, high fixed cost but low marginal cost technology, firms endogenously adopt more in big cities, cities that offer abundant amenities for high-skilled workers and cities that ...
Working Paper
The Impact of Racial Segregation on College Attainment in Spatial Equilibrium
We incorporate race into an overlapping-generations spatial-equilibrium model with neighborhood spillovers. Race matters in two ways: (i) the Black-White wage gap and (ii) homophily—the preferences of individuals over the racial composition of their neighborhood. We find that these two forces generate a Black-White college gap of 22 percentage points, explaining about 80% of the college gap in the data for the St. Louis metro area. Counterfactual exercises show that the wage gap and homophily explain 7 and 18 percentage points of the college gap, respectively. A policy of equalizing school ...
Residential Segregation and the Black-White College Gap
Using an economic model, researchers find that racial wage disparities, the amenity externality and racial barriers to moving could help explain the Black-white gap in college attainment.
Working Paper
The Effect of COVID Immigration Restrictions on Post-Pandemic Labor Market Tightness
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were unprecedented shortfalls in immigration. Concurrently, as the economy recovered, the labor market became tight, with the number of vacancies per unemployed worker reaching two, more than twice its pre-pandemic average. In this article, we investigate whether these two trends are connected. We find no evidence to support the hypothesis that the immigration shortfalls caused the tight labor market, for two main reasons. First, while the immigration deficit peaked at about two million workers, this number had largely recovered by February 2022, just as ...
Working Paper
The Impact of Racial Segregation on College Attainment in Spatial Equilibrium
This paper seeks to understand the forces that maintain racial segregation and the Black-White gap in college attainment, as well as their interactions with place-based policy interventions. We incorporate race into an overlapping-generations spatial-equilibrium model with neighborhood spillovers. Race matters due to: (i) a Black-White wage gap, (ii) amenity externalities---households care about their neighborhood's racial composition---and (iii) additional barriers to moving for Black households. We find that these forces account for 71% of the racial segregation and 64% of the Black-White ...
Working Paper
Where Did the Workers Go? The Effect of COVID Immigration Restrictions on Post-Pandemic Labor Market Tightness
During the COVID pandemic there were unprecedented shortfalls in immigration. At the same time, during the economic recovery, the labor market was tight, with the number of vacancies per unemployed worker reaching 2.5, more than twice its pre-pandemic average. In this paper, we investigate whether these two trends are linked. We do not find evidence to support the hypothesis that the immigration shortfalls caused the tight labor market for two reasons. First, at the peak, we were missing about 2 million immigrant workers, but this number had largely recovered by February 2022 just as the ...
Journal Article
Child Poverty Rates in the Eighth District and Beyond
Child poverty and income volatility are higher in the Fed’s Eighth District than in the rest of the country, but the 2021 child tax credit could help alleviate these issues.