Search Results
Journal Article
Adjusting the Unemployment Thermometer
Stay-at-home orders issued to slow the spread of COVID-19 may have severely distorted labor market statistics, notably the official unemployment rate. A method to correct the survey biases associated with the pandemic indicates that the true unemployment rate was substantially higher than the official rate in April and May. However, the biases appeared to fade thereafter, making the drop in June even more dramatic than implied by the official data.
Working Paper
Phillips Meets Beveridge
The Phillips curve plays a central role in the macroeconomics literature. However, there is little consensus on the forcing variable that drives inflation in the model, i.e., on the appropriate measure of “slack” in the economy. In this work, we systematically assess the ability of variables commonly used in the literature to (i) predict and (ii) explain inflation fluctuations over time and across U.S. metropolitan areas. In particular, we exploit a newly constructed panel dataset with job openings and vacancy filling cost proxies covering 1982-2022. We find that the vacancy-unemployment ...
Journal Article
How Much Has the Cooling Economy Reduced Inflation?
Inflation still lies somewhat above the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal after slowing significantly since its spring 2022 peak. Analysis shows that two labor market indicators—the ratios of job vacancies to unemployed workers and of vacancies to effective job seekers—are particularly informative in determining excess demand’s impact on recent inflation. The measures suggest that declines in excess demand pushed inflation down almost three-quarters of a percentage point over the past two years. However, elevated demand continued to contribute 0.3 to 0.4 percentage point to inflation as of ...