Search Results
Working Paper
Why Has the US Economy Recovered So Consistently from Every Recession in the Past 70 Years?
It is a remarkable fact about the historical US business cycle that, after unemployment reached its peak in a recession, and a recovery began, the annual reduction in the unemployment rate was stable at around 0.55 percentage points per year. The economy seems to have had an irresistible force toward restoring full employment. There was high variation in monetary and fiscal policy, and in productivity and labor-force growth, but little variation in the rate of decline of unemployment. We explore models of the labor market's self-recovery that imply gradual working off of unemployment ...
Working Paper
The Unemployed with Jobs and without Jobs
Potential workers are classified as unemployed if they seek work but are not working. The unemployed population contains two groups—those with jobs and those without jobs. Those with jobs are on furlough or temporary layoff. This group expanded tremendously in April 2020, at the trough of the pandemic recession. They wait out periods of non-work with the understanding that their jobs still exist and that they will be recalled. We show that the resulting temporary-layoff unemployment mostly dissipated by the end of 2020. Potential workers without jobs constitute what we call jobless ...
Speech
Perspectives on the Eventual Economic Recovery
The past year with the pandemic has been grueling. Eleven months after the initial outbreak, economic outcomes for individuals and businesses still remain closely tied to finding and implementing effective public health policy. However, with the successful development of multiple vaccines, it is now possible to imagine much better macroeconomic outcomes ahead. My view is that policymakers must work to ensure that the benefits of the eventual recovery are widely shared. As I’ve mentioned, I believe that as we think about recovery from the pandemic, we should take the time to look for ways ...
Discussion Paper
The End of a Volatile Year: What Have Firms Told Us?
Speech
The Economy’s Outlook, Challenges, and Way Forward
Recent economic data have been encouraging, but President Rosengren believes the most difficult part of the recovery is still ahead of us. A full recovery probably requires the availability of vaccines and more effective treatments for the virus because until then, many businesses and households are unlikely to return to more normal spending habits. While he anticipates a slowly improving economy, economic activity still faces serious headwinds. Potential financial impediments and challenges in the labor market make the recovery process more gradual than any of us would prefer. Improvement in ...
Journal Article
Consumption Growth Regimes and the Post-Financial Crisis Recovery
Andrew Foerster and Jason Choi find that consumption has grown more slowly after the Great Recession due to the continued influence of persistent factors unusual to see outside recessions.
Speech
The Economy’s Outlook, Challenges, and Way Forward
President Rosengren’s comments were delivered at the Massachusetts Bankers Association’s New England Conference, and were based on a speech he delivered on September 23, 2020 to the Boston Economic Club.
Speech
Financial Stability Factors and the Severity of the Current Recession [UBS European Virtual Conference]
Economic shocks happen, but the severity of the consequences depends on how fragile, or susceptible to financial instability, the economy was prior to the shock. In the U.S., excessive risk-taking behavior prior to COVID-19 is likely to delay the recovery, even though the initial response by fiscal and monetary policymakers was a prompt and substantial mitigant.
Journal Article
Has job quality been \\"job one\\" in the economic recovery?
The Great Recession of 2007-09 has been followed by a Not-So-Great Recovery. The U.S. economy lost more than 8.7 million jobs, representing 6.3 percent of total U.S. payroll employment, on net, during the Great Recession. But while the recovery from this very deep recession began in June 2009, the first net increase in payrolls did not occur until March 2010, eight months into the recovery.
Working Paper
Pandemic Layoffs and the Role of Stay-At-Home Orders
We compile a novel high-frequency, detailed geographic dataset on mass layoffs from U.S. state labor departments. Using recent advances in difference-in-difference estimation with staggered treatment, we find that locally-mandated stay-at-home orders issued March 16–22, 2020 triggered mass layoffs equal to half a percent of the population in just one week. Our findings contribute to explanations for why job loss in 2020 was synchronous and catastrophic, yet temporary.