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Working Paper
Place-Based Labor Market Inequality
This paper presents an overview of how various labor market indicators differ across geography. While many indicators are often discussed in terms of national aggregates, such discussions obscure the large degree of variation that exists across localities. We primarily use counties as a geographic unit, and document both structural differences that persist over time as well as differences in the past two business cycles. The racial composition of communities plays a large role in explaining geographic differences in labor market indicators, in some cases even more so than income. We ...
Working Paper
Suitability of a County-Level Income Definition for Analysis of Lower-Income Communities
This paper examines the costs and benefits of using a straightforward county-level income definition in the classification and study of lower-income communities. A definition based on population-weighted distribution of county-level median household incomes does a good job of identifying the most economically disadvantaged communities across a wide range of indicators. We show robustness to the use of different thresholds, levels of geography, and cost-of-living adjustments.
Discussion Paper
AI Adoption and Firms’ Job-Posting Behavior
Since ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, usage of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has soared. More than half of the U.S. working-age population has used generative AI, according to the Real-Time Population Survey from August 2025 (Bick, Blandin, and Deming 2025).
Discussion Paper
Should We Be Concerned Again About U.S. Current Account Sustainability?
In this note, we compare the present situation to that prevailing in the mid-2000s, when concerns about the NIIP and the current account were at the forefront, and we examine the prospects for U.S. external sustainability going forward.
Working Paper
The Flight to Affordability: Effects of Pandemic Rent Increases on Renters By Geography
In the pandemic era, people moved from high-density, expensive areas to more affordable areas, putting upward pressure on local housing prices. We examine the geographic distribution of rent growth during this time and its effects on renters. We use administrative new lease data from RealPage and household-level data on rent and income from the American Community Survey. We analyze rents and incomes using Public Use Microdata Areas grouped in two ways: by prepandemic rent levels and by pre-pandemic rent-to-income ratios. Rents grew more in areas with lower pre-pandemic rents but not in areas ...