Search Results
Discussion Paper
COVID-19, Workers, and Policy
As coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) spreads around the world and across the United States, many policymakers and public health officials are encouraging employers to tell workers to work remotely or to stay home when they or their family members are sick. There are significant questions, though, about how many people can work from home. Many U.S. workers in retail, restaurants, manufacturing, and other occupations cannot do so. This Workforce Currents post will explore who can work from home and identify practices and policies to support workers who cannot work from home in the event of a pandemic ...
Speech
The Economic Health of the Region
Remarks at the Waterfront Alliance Regional Symposium: Recovery and Resiliency in a New Era (delivered via videoconference).
Briefing
Sorting in the Labor Market
Do high-ability workers typically work for more productive firms? If so, then we say there is positive sorting between firms and workers in the labor market. In this article, we review evidence on sorting and conclude that it is positive and has been increasing for men in the last several decades. Stronger positive sorting is viewed as one reason behind increasing wage inequality.
Journal Article
Help Wanted: Employers are having a hard time hiring. Not enough workers or not the right skills?
Cover story article on: Help Wanted: Employers are having a hard time hiring. Not enough workers or not the right skills?
Speech
The Economic Outlook: Getting Back to "More Like Normal"
Remarks at One Hundred Black Men of New York (delivered via videoconference).
AI is simultaneously aiding and replacing workers, wage data suggest
Artificial intelligence’s impact on the labor market will depend on whether the technology automates or augments worker tasks.
Working Paper
Trade, Labor Reallocation Across Firms and Wage Inequality
This paper develops a framework for studying the effects of higher trade openness on the wage distribution that emphasizes within-industry labor reallocation across firms, strong skill-productivity complementarities in production and heterogenous fixed export costs across firms. Assuming no entry in the industry, an autarkic economy that opens to trade experiences a pervasive rise in wage inequality; a trade liberalization in a trading economy increases inequality at the lower end of the distribution, but may reduce it elsewhere. Assuming free entry, opening to trade could result in ...
Journal Article
On-the-Job Exposure to AI Among Lower-Income Workers
To better understand the potential impacts of generative AI (gen AI) on the economy, this analysis uses quantitative methods to assess the extent to which workers are likely to be exposed to AI on the job, paying particular attention to workers in lower-income households, the occupations and industries in which they work, and how exposure varies across different parts of the country. It also draws on qualitative insights to understand how the impacts of AI integration are showing up in real time and how workforce and training organizations, nonprofits, and employers are adapting.
Firms’ Wage-Setting Power: A New Take on Monopsony in the Labor Market
Why do some firms seem to pay workers less than what their labor is worth? An economic model gives insights into how wage-setting power arises in modern labor markets.