Journal Article
How to Jump-Start Industrialization in Sub-Saharan Africa
Wen, Yi; Arbogast, Iris (2021-05-27)
Most sub-Saharan nations are poor and a long way from full-scale industrialization. However, certain policies could help spur their economic development.
The Regional Economist

Working Paper
The Jobs Effect of Ending Pandemic Unemployment Benefits: A State-Level Analysis
Arbogast, Iris; Dupor, Bill (2023-02-08)
This paper uses the asynchronous cessation of emergency unemployment benefits (EUB) in 2021 to investigate the jobs impact of ending unemployment benefits. While some states stopped providing EUB in September, others stopped as early as June. Using the cessation month as an instrument, we estimate the effect on employment of reducing unemployment rolls. In the second month following a state’s program termination, for every 100 person reduction in beneficiaries, state employment causally increased by about 27 persons. The effect is statistically different from zero and robust to a wide array ...
Working Papers , Paper 2022-010

Not All Bursting Market Bubbles Have the Same Recessionary Effect
Wen, Yi; Arbogast, Iris (2021-02-15)
The popped IT bubble ushered in an eight-month recession in 2001. The burst housing bubble resulted in the Great Recession (2007-09). Why the difference?
On the Economy

V-Shaped Recovery Eludes G-7 Countries
Arbogast, Iris; Wen, Yi (2020-11-16)
Economic growth should overshoot its long-run trend to make up for the downturn caused by the pandemic. So far, this hasn’t happened.
On the Economy

Journal Article
How the Death Rate Affects the Aging of the US Population
Ravikumar, B.; Arbogast, Iris (2023-04-21)
What is the effect of death rates on the increased average age of the US population?
Economic Synopses , Issue 8 , Pages 2 pages

Journal Article
Working from Home: More Americans Are Telecommuting
Gascon, Charles S.; Arbogast, Iris; Spewak, Andrew (2019)
Americans who primarily work from home represented 3% of full-time employees in 2017, up from 0.7% in 1980.
The Regional Economist , Volume 27 , Issue 3

Journal Article
Who’s Driving a Recent Decline in Life Expectancy?
Ravikumar, B.; Arbogast, Iris (2023-07-03)
Life expectancy in the U.S. and most other G-7 nations declined from 2019 to 2021. For the U.S., it was the biggest two-year drop since the early 1920s.
The Regional Economist

Journal Article
Long-Term Trends in Gasoline Prices
Ravikumar, B.; Arbogast, Iris (2022-06-17)
Average annual CPI inflation from 1990 to 2021 was 2.4%, while average annual gasoline price inflation was 3.9%.
Economic Synopses , Issue 14 , Pages 1-2

Journal Article
Increasing Employment by Halting Pandemic Unemployment Benefits
Dupor, Bill; Arbogast, Iris (2022-07-14)
In mid-2021, 26 states halted participation in all or some federal emergency unemployment benefits (EUB) programs before those programs' federal funding lapsed. This article uses this asynchronous EUB cessation between early- and late-halting states to estimate the causal impact of benefit cessation on employment. We find that cessation increased employment by 29 persons for every 100 (pre-halt) EUB recipients. Expressed as a number of jobs, if all states had halted EUB in June, September employment would have been 3.4 million persons higher relative to a no-halt counterfactual. Late-halting ...
Review , Volume 104 , Issue 3 , Pages 166-177

Journal Article
Anecdotal Evidence Suggests State Capacity Unrelated to COVID-19 Spread
Wen, Yi; Arbogast, Iris; Reinbold, Brian (2020-11-23)
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored many societal issues, including the capacity of different world governments to contain the virus’ spread.
The Regional Economist , Volume 28 , Issue 4