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Report
Review of U.S. Business Bankruptcies During the COVID-19 Pandemic
In this note, we review trends in U.S. business bankruptcy filings between 2019 and the third quarter of 2021, with a focus on the COVID-19 pandemic period. We examine macro trends in business bankruptcies as well as conduct an in-depth review of industries hardest hit by the pandemic, including hotels, retail and restaurants. We find that, thus far, the anticipated surge in bankruptcies has largely not materialized, including in the aforementioned industries. Official sector actions, including those by the Federal Reserve, played a key role in offsetting the negative impact on businesses of ...
Discussion Paper
How Is Online Shopping Affecting Retail Employment?
It’s been said that if you want to know how the economy is doing, look at how many people are carrying shopping bags. That adage may not hold so well today. The rise of the internet and e-commerce over the past two decades has chipped away at the market share of “brick and mortar” retailers. But it’s only been in the past few years that this shift in market share has had a noteworthy effect on retail employment. In this post, we focus on national and local employment trends in two categories of retail—department stores and nonstore retailers—and try to assess how the surge in ...
Working Paper
Sellin' in the Rain: Weather, Climate, and Retail Sales
I apply a novel machine-learning based “weather index” method to daily store- level sales data for a national apparel and sporting goods brand to examine short-run responses to weather and long-run adaptation to climate. I find that even when considering potentially offsetting shifts of sales between outdoor and indoor stores, to the firm's website, or over time, weather has significant persistent effects on sales. This suggests that weather may increase sales volatility as more severe weather shocks be- come more frequent under climate change. Consistent with adaptation to climate, I ...