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Working Paper
The Role of News about TFP in U.S. Recessions and Booms
We develop a general equilibrium model to study the historical contribution of TFP news to the U.S. business cycle. Hiring frictions provide incentives for firms to start hiring ahead of an anticipated improvement in technology. For plausibly calibrated hiring costs, employment gradually rises in response to positive TFP news shocks even under standard preferences. TFP news shocks are identified mainly by current and expected unemployment rates since periods in which average unemployment is relatively high (low) are also periods in which average TFP growth is slow (fast). We work out the ...
Report
Expectations Data in Structural Microeconomic Models
A growing literature uses now widely available data on beliefs and expectations in the estimation of structural models. In this chapter, we review this literature, with an emphasis on models of individual and household behavior. We first show how expectations data have been used to relax strong assumptions about beliefs and outline how they can be used in estimation to substitute for, or as a complement to, data on choices. Next, we discuss the literature that uses different types of expectations data in the estimation of structural models. We conclude by noting directions for future research.
Working Paper
Reparations and Persistent Racial Wealth Gaps
Reparations is a policy proposal aiming to address the wealth gap between Black and White households. We provide a first formal analysis of the economics of reparations using a long-run model of heterogeneous dynasties with an occupational choice and bequests. Our innovation is to introduce endogenous dispersion of beliefs about risky returns, reflecting differences in dynasties' experiences with entrepreneurship over time. Feeding the exclusion of Black dynasties from labor and capital markets as driving force, the model quantitatively reproduces current and historical racial gaps in wealth, ...
Working Paper
Perceptions about Monetary Policy
We estimate perceptions about the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy rule from panel data on professional forecasts of interest rates and macroeconomic conditions. The perceived dependence of the federal funds rate on economic conditions varies substantially over time, including over the monetary policy cycle. Forecasters update their perceptions about the Fed’s policy rule in response to monetary policy actions, measured by high-frequency interest rate surprises, suggesting that they have imperfect information about this rule. Monetary policy perceptions matter for monetary transmission, ...
Working Paper
Information Externalities, Funding Liquidity, and Fire Sales
We develop a theory of learning in a model of fire sales and collateralized debt to study how beliefs about fundamentals are shaped by market conditions. Agents exchange short-term debt contracts to invest in a long-term risky asset, and receive shocks to the opportunity cost of funds (cost shocks) and news about the fundamental of the asset, both of which are private information. Asset prices play a dual role of clearing markets and conveying agents' private information, but markets are informationally inefficient: Agents can partially, but never fully, infer their counterparties' private ...
Working Paper
Information Externalities, Funding Liquidity, and Fire Sales
We develop a theory of learning in a model of fire sales and collateralized debt to study how beliefs about fundamentals are shaped by market conditions. Agents exchange short-term debt contracts to invest in a long-term risky asset, and receive shocks to the opportunity cost of funds (cost shocks) and news about the fundamental of the asset, both of which are private information. Asset prices play a dual role of clearing markets and conveying agents' private information, but markets are informationally inefficient: Agents can partially, but never fully, infer their counterparties' private ...
Report
Workers’ Perceptions of Earnings Growth and Employment Risk
In addition to realized earnings and employment shocks, forward-looking individuals are presumed to condition their consumption and labor supply decisions on their subjective beliefs about future labor market risks. This paper uses rich panel data to document considerable individual heterogeneity in earnings growth expectations and in the perceived likelihood of voluntary and involuntary job exits. We examine how expectations evolve over the working life and business cycle, and how they co-vary with macroeconomic expectations and personal experiences. While largely consistent with patterns in ...