Search Results
Real-Time Survey to Provide Timelier Labor Market Data in Era of COVID-19
An effective economic policy response to the rapidly evolving coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis requires timely and accurate information on its impact. To help reduce the information gap, we introduce the Real-Time Population Survey.
Dallas Fed Mobility and Engagement Index Gives Insight into COVID-19’s Economic Impact
To gain insight into the economic impact of the pandemic, we developed an index of mobility and engagement, based on geolocation data collected from a large sample of mobile devices.
Real-Time Population Survey Suggests U.S. Job Losses Slowed in Early May
Survey results for the week of May 10 suggest further declines in employment and an increase in unemployment relative to the week of April 26 – May 2, though both changes are within the survey’s margin of error.
Commuting Patterns During COVID-19 Endure; Minorities Less Likely to Work from Home
Some workers transitioned to working from home relatively easily. In many jobs, however, performing regular work activities from home is impossible, forcing many individuals to become inactive or look for a new job.
Oil and Gas Sector Increasingly Influences U.S. Business Fixed Investment
As U.S. oil production has more than doubled over the past decade, the oil and gas sector has become more important to growth in non-residential investment.
U.S. Tax Cuts Boost Economy—but for How Long?
Did the U.S. tax cuts boost economic activity in 2018? The answer is yes, at least according to the recent empirical literature on the macroeconomic effects of taxes.
Cost of Texas’ 2021 Deep Freeze Justifies Weatherization
Our analysis indicates winterizing for extreme winter weather events appears financially reasonable.
The Labor Market May Be Tighter than the Level of Employment Suggests
Nonfarm payroll employment disappointed in April, increasing just 266,000, well below consensus expectations of nearly 1 million new jobs. With payroll employment remaining well below its prior peak, slow job growth would typically suggest weak demand for labor from firms and limited employment opportunities for job seekers. Current conditions in the labor market, however, may be far from typical.
Government-funded R&D produces long-term productivity gains
Our estimates indicate that government-funded R&D accounts for roughly one quarter of all business sector productivity growth since World War II, including one quarter of the deceleration in productivity growth since the late 1960s.
Working Paper
Weak Instrument Bias in Impulse Response Estimators
We approximate the finite-sample distribution of impulse response function (IRF) estimators that are just-identified with a weak instrument using the conventional local-to-zero asymptotic framework. Since the distribution lacks a mean, we assess bias using the mode and conclude that researchers prioritizing robustness against weak instrument bias should favor vector autoregressions (VARs) over local projections (LPs). Existing testing procedures are ill-suited for assessing weak instrument bias in IRF estimates, and we propose a novel simple test based on the usual first-stage F-statistic. We ...