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Working Paper
Heterogeneity in labor supply elasticity and optimal taxation
Standard public finance principles imply that workers with more elastic labor supply should face smaller tax distortions. This paper quantitatively tests the potential of such an idea within a life-cycle model with heterogeneous two-member households. I find that younger and older-wealthier households have a larger labor supply elasticity than middle-aged households. The same is true for household members who are not the sole financial provider in the unit relative to primary breadwinners. To decrease inefficient distortions I study a tax system that uses information on the age, assets, and ...
Briefing
How Much Do Labor Costs Affect Prices in Recessions and in Expansions?
Inflation had been quite low in the decade following the Great Recession but surged following the COVID-19 recession. Can labor costs explain this change in the dynamics of inflation? According to recent research, the relatively stable inflation in the last decade indicates a weaker pass-through of labor costs to wages, especially in the goods sector of the economy. The current inflationary episode, however, suggests that the wage-price pass-through may have regained its strength.
Journal Article
What Can We Learn from Online Wage Postings? Evidence from Glassdoor
We use millions of user-entry salaries from Glassdoor to evaluate how well data from online wage postings compare with more traditional, aggregated data, such as the Quarterly Census for Employment and Wages (QCEW) or household-level data such as the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). We perform our analysis across industries as well as geographical areas. We find that industry employment shares differ substantially between Glassdoor and QCEW. However, the correlation between industry- and region-specific average salaries in Glassdoor and the QCEW is fairly high. Similarly, the ...
Journal Article
A Business Cycle Analysis of Debt and Equity Financing
This article provides an introductory, yet comprehensive, business cycle analysis of firm financing. Using data from Compustat, we find that debt issuance is procyclical while the net sale of stock is countercyclical. However, an equity financing measure that includes stock compensation and especially mergers turns out to be weakly procyclical. Nevertheless, there is widespread heterogeneity in firm financing. Compared to large firms, the equity issuance of small firms tends to be more procyclical while debt issuance tends to be less procyclical. We then examine how well a quantitative model ...
Working Paper
Misallocation and Credit Market Constraints: the Role of Long-Term Financing
We measure aggregate productivity loss due to credit market constraints in a model with endogenous borrowing constraints, long-duration bonds, and costly equity payouts. Due to long-duration bonds, the model generates a realistic distribution of credit spreads. We structurally estimate our model using firm-level data on credit spreads from Thomson Reuters Bond Security Data and balance sheet data from Compustat. Credit market constraints increase aggregate productivity by 0.4% through their effect on the credit spread distribution. However, credit market constraints also interact with costly ...
Briefing
How Can We Make a Progressive Tax System More Efficient?
In the U.S., income tax rates rise as households earn more. However, such a system means workers have a reduced incentive to increase their earnings. In this article, I discuss a finding from one of my papers that explores the possible effects of targeting tax rates on additional characteristics besides income.
Briefing
Does Infrastructure Spending Boost the Economy?
Public infrastructure investment is not like other government stimulus. Public investment acts as a typical demand stimulus but also provides important services to the private sector to assist with production of goods. This article analyzes the effects of public investment — especially highway construction, which is traditionally one of the largest components of public investment — on output. Dynamic effects turn out to be very important: Most studies find substantial benefits for the economy not in the immediate aftermath of the investment spending but a few years ahead.
Working Paper
Disincentive Effects of Unemployment Insurance Benefits
Unemployment insurance (UI) acts both as a disincentive for labor supply and as a demand stimulus which may explain why empirical studies often find limited effects of UI on employment. This paper provides independent estimates of the disincentive effects arising from the largest expansion of UI in U.S. history, the pandemic unemployment benefits. Using high-frequency data on small restaurants and retailers from Homebase, we control for local demand effects by comparing neighboring businesses that largely share the positive impact of UI stimulus. We find that employment in low-wage businesses ...
Briefing
How Did Pandemic UI Benefits Affect Employment Recovery in Local Industry Markets?
We analyze the employment recovery of low-wage establishments relative to the employment recovery of high-wage establishments within local labor markets, and we find a slower recovery in low-wage establishments. We associate the difference with the expanded generosity of pandemic unemployment insurance (UI) supplements, which have a larger negative effect on the job-filling rate of low-paying establishments. We use a model of labor search to translate our establishment-level observations into a disincentive effect of pandemic UI benefits at the worker level.