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Working Paper
Looking Inside the Magic 8 Ball : An Analysis of Sales Forecasts using Italian Firm-Level Data
This paper explores firm forecasting strategies. Using Italian data, we focus on two aspects of the forecasting process: how firms forecast sales and how accurate their predictions are. We relate both outcomes to current conditions, firm experience, global factors, and other firm characteristics. We find that current conditions tend to explain most of the variability in the sales forecast. While past projection errors tend to account for cross-firm differences in models of expectation formation, they are a key explanatory variable in models of forecast accuracy. Among other controls, firm ...
Working Paper
The Vaccine Boost: Quantifying the Impact of the COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout on Measures of Activity
This paper investigates the impact of vaccine administration on three main dimensions of activity: spending, mobility, and employment. Our investigation combines two parts. First, we exploit the variation in vaccine administration across states. In panel regressions that include a large set of controls, we find that the rollout has a significant impact on spending, while the results on mobility and employment are mixed. Second, to address concerns of endogeneity, we look at the impact of vaccine lotteries on spending. Using a dynamic event design setting, we find that lotteries have ...
Discussion Paper
Industrial Production vs. Goods GDP: Two Sides of the Same Coin?
Since the early 2000s, there has been a growing divergence between the index of industrial production (IP) and the goods component of GDP—hereafter, goods GDP—breaking the close correlation the two series had maintained in earlier decades (figure 1). This note revisits the factors behind this divergence and provides a novel quantification of their role.
Discussion Paper
The Ability to Work Remotely: Measures and Implications
At the onset of the COVID-19 recession, a large share of the employed switched to remote work. Individual- and firm-level surveys indicated that the switch affected between 35 and 45 percent of workers.
Discussion Paper
Trade in Goods and Services: Measuring Domestic and Export Flows in Buyer-Supplier Data
This note explores measures of domestic and export flows based upon the Compustat customer segment data and compares our measures with official statistics.
Discussion Paper
From Income to Consumption Inequality? Looking through the Lens of Motor Vehicle Purchases
In this note, we assess the pattern of consumption inequality using an alternative data source--namely, new motor vehicle purchases.
Working Paper
Welfare Evaluation in a Heterogeneous Agent Model: How Representative is the CES Representative Consumer?
The present paper investigates the impact of asymmetric price changes on welfare in a model with heterogeneous consumers. I consider consumer heterogeneity a la Anderson et al. (1992). The standard welfare equivalence between the CES representative consumer and the discrete choice model breaks down in presence of asymmetric price changes. In fact, asymmetric variation in prices produce differential gains among heterogeneous consumers. I show that there exists no feasible Kaldor-Hicks income transfer such that the gains are equally redistributed. Intuitively, in presence of decreasing marginal ...