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Working Paper
Estimating Hysteresis Effects
In this paper, we identify demand shocks that can have a permanent effect on output through hysteresis effects. We call these shocks permanent demand shocks. They are found to be quantitatively important in the United States, in particular when the sample includes the Great Recession. Recessions driven by permanent demand shocks lead to a permanent decline in employment and investment, although output per worker is largely unaffected. We find strong evidence that hysteresis transmits through a rise in long-term unemployment and a decline in labor force participation and disproportionately ...
Working Paper
Supply or Demand? Policy Makers' Confusion in the Presence of Hysteresis
Policy makers need to separate between temporary demand-driven shocks and permanent shocks in order to design optimal aggregate demand policies. In this paper we study the case of a central bank that ignores the presence of hysteresis when identifying shocks. By assuming that all low frequency output fluctuations are driven by permanent technology shocks, monetary policy is not aggressive enough in response to demand shocks. In addition, we show that errors in assessing the state of the economy can be self-perpetuating if seen through the lens of the mistaken views of the policymaker. We show ...
Discussion Paper
Will COVID-19 Erase Black Workers' Labor Market Gains?
Black workers experience what is known as a "high-beta" effect across the business cycle. They are hit harder during recessions but benefit more from the momentum of a recovery, especially during particularly strong economic periods. For three years preceding the COVID-19 recession, the United States was enjoying what has been referred to as a "hot" economy. During this time, Black workers regained some of the ground lost in labor market outcomes during the Great Recession, relative to white workers. The sudden onset of the COVID-19 recession reversed that progress. Even though the ...
Working Paper
The Long-Run Effects of Monetary Policy
Is the effect of monetary policy on the productive capacity of the economy long lived? Yes, in fact we find such impacts are significant and last for over a decade based on: (1) merged data from two new international historical databases; (2) identification of exogenous monetary policy using the macroeconomic trilemma; and (3) improved econometric methods. Notably, the capital stock and total factor productivity (TFP) exhibit hysteresis, but labor does not. Money is non-neutral for a much longer period of time than is customarily assumed. A New Keynesian model with endogenous TFP growth can ...
Working Paper
Age and Gender Differentials in Unemployment and Hysteresis
We use a time-varying panel unobserved components model to estimate unemployment gaps disaggregated by age and gender. Recessions before COVID affected men's labor market outcomes more than women's; however, the reverse was true for the COVID recession, with effects amplified for younger workers. The aggregate Phillips curve flattens over time and hysteresis is countercyclical for all groups. We find heterogeneity in both the Phillips curve and hysteresis coefficients, with wages responding more to workers with an outside option (high school- and retirement-age) and larger effects of ...
Working Paper
Hysteresis in Employment among Disadvantaged Workers
We examine hysteresis in employment-to-population ratios among less-educated men using state-level data. Results from dynamic panel regressions indicate a moderate degree of hysteresis: The effects of past employment rates on subsequent employment rates can be substantial but essentially dissipate within three years. This finding is robust to a number of variations. We find no substantial asymmetry in the persistence of high vs. low employment rates. The cumulative effect of hysteresis in the business cycle surrounding the 2001 recession was mildly positive, while the effect in the cycle ...
Working Paper
Some Like It Hot: Assessing Longer-Term Labor Market Benefits from a High-Pressure Economy
This paper explores evidence for positive hysteresis in the labor market. Using data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, we find that negative labor market outcomes during high unemployment periods are mitigated by exposure to a high-pressure economy during the preceding expansion. Breaking total exposure into intensity and duration suggests that these two dimensions have differing impacts. However, the benefits of exposure are not enough to overcome the greater negative impact of high unemployment periods on labor market outcomes of disadvantaged groups, making extension of ...
Discussion Paper
Escaping Unemployment Traps
Economic activity has remained subdued following the Great Recession. One interpretation of the listless recovery is that recessions inflict permanent damage on an economy’s productive capacity. For example, extended periods of high unemployment can lead to skill losses among workers, reducing human capital and lowering future output. This notion that temporary recessions have long-lasting consequences is often termed hysteresis. Another explanation for sluggish growth is the influential secular stagnation hypothesis, which attributes slow growth to long-term changes in the economy’s ...
Report
Slow recoveries and unemployment traps: monetary policy in a time of hysteresis
We analyze monetary policy in a model where temporary shocks can permanently scar the economy's productive capacity. Unemployed workers? skill losses generate multiple steady-state unemployment rates. When monetary policy is constrained by the zero bound, large shocks reduce hiring to a point where the economy recovers slowly at best?at worst, it falls into a permanent unemployment trap. Since monetary policy is powerless to escape such traps ex post, it must avoid them ex ante. The model quantitatively accounts for the slow U.S. recovery following the Great Recession, and suggests that lack ...