Search Results
Speech
The outlook for the U.S. economy in 2018 and beyond: remarks at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, New York City
Remarks at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, New York City.
Working Paper
Tax Progressivity, Economic Booms, and Trickle-Up Economics
We propose a method to decompose changes in the tax structure into orthogonal components measuring the level and progressivity of taxes. Similar to tax shocks found in the existing empirical literature, the level shock is contractionary. The tax progressivity shock is expansionary: Increasing tax progressivity raises (lowers) disposable income at the bottom (top) end of the income distribution by shifting the tax burden from the bottom to the top. If agents' marginal propensity to consume falls with income, the rise in consumption at the bottom more than compensates for the decline in ...
Speech
Remarks at the Economic Press Briefing on the Regional Economy, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City
Remarks at the Economic Press Briefing on the Regional Economy, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City.
Working Paper
The Rise and Fall of Consumption in the 2000s
U.S. consumption has gone through steep ups and downs since the turn of the millennium, but the causes of these fluctuations are still imperfectly identified. We quantify the relative impact on consumption growth of income, unemployment, house prices, credit scores, debt, expectations, foreclosures, inequality, and refinancings for four subperiods: the ?dot-com recession? (2001-2003), the ?subprime boom? (2004-2006), the Great Recession (2007-2009), and the ?tepid recovery? (2010-2012). We document that the explanatory power of different factors varies by subperiods, implying that a ...
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.
Working Paper
The Impact of Racial Segregation on College Attainment in Spatial Equilibrium
We incorporate race into an overlapping-generations spatial-equilibrium model with neighborhood spillovers. Race matters in two ways: (i) the Black-White wage gap and (ii) homophily—the preferences of individuals over the racial composition of their neighborhood. We find that these two forces generate a Black-White college gap of 22 percentage points, explaining about 80% of the college gap in the data for the St. Louis metro area. Counterfactual exercises show that the wage gap and homophily explain 7 and 18 percentage points of the college gap, respectively. A policy of equalizing school ...
Working Paper
The Impact of Racial Segregation on College Attainment in Spatial Equilibrium
This paper seeks to understand the forces that maintain racial segregation and the Black-White gap in college attainment, as well as their interactions with place-based policy interventions. We incorporate race into an overlapping-generations spatial-equilibrium model with neighborhood spillovers. Race matters due to: (i) a Black-White wage gap, (ii) amenity externalities---households care about their neighborhood's racial composition---and (iii) additional barriers to moving for Black households. We find that these forces account for 71% of the racial segregation and 64% of the Black-White ...
Journal Article
Capital Flow Surges and Rising Income Inequality
Surges of foreign investment into developing countries can amplify economic stress and potentially undermine their financial stability. New evidence suggests that excessive foreign capital inflows can also increase income inequality in emerging economies. Research shows that, as low global interest rates trigger more investment, those inflow surges benefit entrepreneurs by raising their returns, while lowering household earnings on bank deposits within the countries. The potential impact on income inequality provides another reason beyond financial stability for resisting abrupt surges in ...
Speech
Opening remarks on higher education: financing, costs, and returns: remarks at the Conference on Higher Education Financing and Costs and Returns of Higher Education, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City
Remarks at the Conference on Higher Education Financing and Costs and Returns of Higher Education, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City.
Working Paper
Monetary Policy and the Distribution of Income: Evidence from U.S. Metropolitan Areas
We use Zip code–level Statistics of Income data from the Internal Revenue Service to measure the distribution of income within U.S. metropolitan areas from 1998 through 2019. Exploiting geographic variation in income distribution over time, we study how unanticipated changes in the monetary policy stance shape the subsequent dynamics of income inequality. The results show that monetary policy persistently affects labor income inequality and that these distributional effects are amplified significantly in weak local labor markets.