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Jel Classification:J30 

Working Paper
Earnings Shocks and Stabilization During COVID-19

This paper documents the magnitude and distribution of U.S. earnings changes during the COVID-19 pandemic and how fiscal relief offset lost earnings. We build panels from administrative tax data to measure annual earnings changes. The frequency of earnings declines during the pandemic were similar to the Great Recession, but the distribution was very different. In 2020, workers starting in the bottom half of the distribution were more likely to experience large annual earnings declines and a similar share of male and female workers had large earnings declines. While most workers experiencing ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2021-052

Working Paper
Has Intergenerational Progress Stalled? Income Growth Over Five Generations of Americans

We find that each of the past four generations of Americans was better off than the previous one, using a post-tax, post-transfer income measure constructed annually from 1963-2022 based on the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. At age 36–40, Millennials had a real median household income that was 18 percent higher than that of the previous generation at the same age. This rate of intergenerational progress was slower than that experienced by the Silent Generation (34 percent) and Baby Boomers (27 percent), but similar to that experienced by Generation X (16 ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2024-007

Report
An Approach to Predicting Regional Labor Market Effects of Economic Shocks: The COVID-19 Pandemic in New England

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic led state and local governments throughout New England and much of the nation to issue ordinances restricting activity that might otherwise contribute to the spread of the disease. Individuals also freely adjusted their behavior, hoping to reduce the chances of infecting themselves or others. As a result, many employers have experienced substantial reductions in sales revenue, which were expected to generate harmful effects on the labor market. Even though the reversal of mandated policies and voluntary behavior changes are well under way, the initial ...
Current Policy Perspectives

Report
Gender differences in the labor market effects of the dollar

Although the dollar has been shown to influence the expected wages of workers, the analysis to date has focused on the male workforce. We show that exchange rate fluctuations also have important implications for women's wages. The dominant wage effects for women?like those for men?arise at times of job transition. Changes in the value of the dollar can cause the wage gap between women who change jobs and women who stay on in their jobs to expand or contract sharply, with the most pronounced effects occurring among the least educated women and women in highly competitive manufacturing ...
Staff Reports , Paper 121

Working Paper
Endogenous Bargaining Power and Declining Labor Compensation Share

Workhorse search and matching models assume constant bargaining weights, while recent evidence indicates that weights vary across time and in cross section. We endogenize bargaining weights in a life-cycle search and matching model by replacing a standard Cobb-Douglas (CD) matching function with a general constant elasticity of substitution (CES) matching function and study the implications for the long-term labor share and bargaining power in the U.S. The CES model explains 64 percent of the reported decline in the labor share since 1980, while the CD model explains only 28 percent of the ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2023-030

Working Paper
Evaluating the Success of President Johnson's War on Poverty: Revisiting the Historical Record Using a Full-Income Poverty Measure

We evaluate progress in President's Johnson's War on Poverty. We do so relative to the scientifically arbitrary but policy relevant 20 percent baseline poverty rate he established for 1963. No existing poverty measure fully captures poverty reductions based on the standard that President Johnson set. To fill this gap, we develop a Full-income Poverty Measure with thresholds set to match the 1963 Official Poverty Rate. We include cash income, taxes, and major in-kind transfers and update poverty thresholds for inflation annually. While the Official Poverty Rate fell from 19.5 percent in 1963 ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2020-011

Working Paper
Measuring Heterogeneity in Job Finding Rates among the Non-Employed Using Labor Force Status Histories

We construct a novel measure of the duration of joblessness using the labor force status histories in the four-month CPS panels. For those out of the labor force (OLF) and the unemployed, the job finding rate declines with the duration of joblessness. This duration measure dominates other existing measures in the CPS for predicting transitions from non-employment to employment. For those OLF, the variation in job finding rates explained by the duration of joblessness is five times larger than the variation explained by the self-reported desire to work or reasons for not searching. For the ...
Working Paper Series , Paper 2017-20

Journal Article
Do the benefits of college still outweigh the costs?

In recent years, students have been paying more to attend college and earning less upon graduation?trends that have led many observers to question whether a college education remains a good investment. However, an analysis of the economic returns to college since the 1970s demonstrates that the benefits of both a bachelor?s degree and an associate?s degree still tend to outweigh the costs, with both degrees earning a return of about 15 percent over the past decade. The return has remained high in spite of rising tuition and falling earnings because the wages of those without a college degree ...
Current Issues in Economics and Finance , Volume 20

Working Paper
Failing Just Fine: Assessing Careers of Venture Capital-backed Entrepreneurs via a Non-Wage Measure

This paper proposes a non-pecuniary measure of career achievement: seniority. Based on a database of over 130 million resumes, this metric exploits the variation in how long it takes to attain job titles. When non-monetary factors influence career choice, assessing career attainment via non-wage measures, such as seniority, has significant advantages. Accordingly, we use our seniority measure to study labor market outcomes of VC-backed entrepreneurs. Would-be founders experience accelerated career trajectories prior to founding, significantly outperforming graduates from same-tier colleges ...
Working Papers , Paper 23-17

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Larrimore, Jeff 10 items

Kudlyak, Marianna 7 items

Corinth, Kevin C. 6 items

Mortenson, Jacob 4 items

Splinter, David 4 items

Tuzemen, Didem 4 items

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