Search Results
Working Paper
From Population Growth to TFP Growth
A slowdown in population growth causes a decline in business dynamism by increasing the share of old businesses. But how does it affect productivity growth? We answer this question by extending a standard firm dynamics model to include endogenous productivity growth. Theoretically, the growth rate of the size of surviving old businesses is a “sufficient statistic" for determining the direction and magnitude of the impact of population growth on TFP growth. Quantitatively, this effect is significant across balanced growth paths for the United States and Japan. TFP growth in the United States ...
Briefing
Secular Trends in Macroeconomics and Firm Dynamics: A Conference Recap
How does declining population growth affect firm dynamics? Is income growth volatility decreasing in the U.S.? How do changes in housing prices affect young businesses? Have investments in artificial intelligence improved productivity? These were among the questions addressed by economists during a recent Richmond Fed research conference.
Working Paper
Demographics and Real Interest Rates Across Countries and Over Time
We explore the implications of demographic trends for the evolution of real interest rates across countries and over time. To that end, we develop a tractable three-country general equilibrium model with imperfect capital mobility and country-specific demographic trends. We calibrate the model to study how low-frequency movements in a country's real interest rate depend on its own and other countries' demographic factors, given a certain degree of financial integration. The more financially integrated a country is, the higher the sensitivity of its real interest rate to global developments ...
Working Paper
From Population Growth to TFP Growth
A slowdown in population growth causes a decline in business dynamism by increasing the share of old businesses. But how does it affect productivity growth? We answer this question by extending a standard business dynamics model to include endogenous productivity growth. Theoretically, the growth rate of the size of surviving old businesses is a “sufficient statistic" for determining the direction and magnitude of the impact of population growth on productivity growth. Quantitatively, this effect is significant across balanced growth paths for the United States and Japan. TFP growth in the ...
Working Paper
Snow Belt to Sun Belt Migration: End of an Era?
Internal migration has been cited as a key channel by which societies will adapt to climate change. We show in this paper that this process has already been happening in the United States. Over the course of the past 50 years, the tendency of Americans to move from the coldest places (“snow belt”), which have become warmer, to the hottest places (“sun belt”), which have become hotter, has steadily declined. In the latest full decade, 2010-2020, both county population growth and county net migration rates were essentially uncorrelated with the historical means of either extreme heat ...
U.S. Population Growth Slowed Further in 2020
This year will likely be the slowest annual population increase in U.S. history outside of wartime.
Journal Article
From Brain Drain to Brain Gain, Oklahoma’s Population on the Rise
This edition of Oklahoma Economist examines multiple sources of state migration data to quantify the drivers of the state’s population growth. It finds the recent surge of new residents was driven primarily by historic levels of domestic migration from states in the western half of the U.S., as well as a reversal of the “brain drain” that plagued the state for much of the 2010s.
Working Paper
The Postpandemic U.S. Immigration Surge: New Facts and Inflationary Implications
The U.S. experienced an extraordinary postpandemic surge in unauthorized immigration. This paper combines administrative data on border encounters and immigration court records with household survey data to document two new facts about these immigrants: They tend to be hand-to-mouth consumers and low-skilled workers that complement the existing workforce. We build these features into a model with capital, household heterogeneity and population growth to study the inflationary effects of this episode. Contrary to the popular view, we find little effect on inflation, as the increase in supply ...