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Journal Article
Employment Effects of COVID-19 across States, Sectors
The COVID-19 pandemic generated sharp losses in employment in early 2020, followed by a partial but incomplete recovery that continues to this day. The effects on employment in business sectors that produce goods and those that provide services varied substantially across states. This was the case during both the initial drop and the subsequent recovery. The extent of the cross-state variation and how the variation has evolved over time has been unlike any past recessions, making the pandemic recession and recovery unprecedented in both its severity and its uneven impact.
Working Paper
The Road of Federal Infrastructure Spending Passes Through the States
Because federal infrastructure spending largely takes the form of grants to state governments, the macroeconomic impact of such packages depends on the share of federal grants that “passes through” to actual infrastructure spending done by states. A low degree of pass-through would tend to mute the economic impact from federal grants, reflecting a crowd-out effect on state spending. We first revisit Knight’s (2002) influential finding of near-zero pass-through (perfect crowd out) of federal highway grants. That result is found to be specification-sensitive and is reversed completely in ...
Journal Article
The Changing Disparity in Prices Across States
Differences in prices for consumer goods and services across states have been increasing since the early 2010s. Those differences accelerated during the pandemic and the subsequent inflation surge. Higher-price states saw faster inflation from 2019 to 2022 compared with lower-price states, leading price levels to diverge further across regions. Data show that state-level inflation was driven by both goods and services, which tended to move together rather than independently in most regions.
Journal Article
Geographic Patterns of Innovation Across U.S. States: 1980-2010
The distribution of innovation in the United States has become more concentrated and has shifted to the West.
Discussion Paper
Catching Up or Falling Behind? New Jersey Schools in the Aftermath of the Great Recession
Today’s post, which complements Monday’s on New York State and a set of interactive graphics released by the New York Fed earlier, assesses the effect of the Great Recession on educational finances in New Jersey. The Great Recession severely restricted state and local funds, which are the main sources of funding for schools. To help avoid steep budget cuts to schools, the federal government allocated $100 billion for education as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the stimulus. The stimulus money was meant to provide temporary relief to ...