Aggregate U.S. labor market dynamics are well approximated by a dual labor market supplemented with a third, predominantly, home-production segment. We uncover this structure by estimating a Hidden Markov Model, a machine-learning method. The different market segments are identified through...

The underlying data from which the U.S. unemployment rate, labor-force participation rate, and duration of unemployment are calculated contain numerous internal contradictions. This paper catalogs these inconsistencies and proposes a unified reconciliation. We find that the usual statistics...

This paper develops new estimates of flows into and out of unemployment that allow for unobserved heterogeneity across workers as well as direct effects of unemployment duration on unemployment-exit probabilities. Unlike any previous paper in this literature, we develop a complete dynamic...

We develop a dynamic decomposition of the empirical Beveridge curve, i.e., the level of vacancies conditional on unemployment. Using a standard model, we show that three factors can shift the Beveridge curve: reduced-form matching efficiency, changes in the job separation rate, and...

The U.S. unemployment rate averaged 8.4% during the first five years of recovery from the Great Recession of 2007-2009, the weakest recovery on record. But as the expansion continued, unemployment continued to decline and by 2018 reached the lowest levels in almost half a century. In this Note,...

This paper develops new estimates of flows into and out of unemployment that allow for unobserved heterogeneity across workers as well as direct effects of unemployment duration on unemployment-exit probabilities. Unlike any previous paper in this literature, we develop a complete dynamic...

This paper develops new estimates of flows into and out of unemployment that allow for unobserved heterogeneity across workers as well as direct effects of unemployment duration on unemployment-exit probabilities. Unlike any previous paper in this literature, we develop a complete dynamic...

This paper proposes a new nonparametric mixed data sampling (MIDAS) model and develops a framework to infer clusters in a panel regression with mixed frequency data. The nonparametric MIDAS estimation method is more flexible and substantially simpler to implement than competing approaches. We...

Data that are potentially informative about the inflation expectations of economic agents have grown over recent years and now include information from a wide variety of surveys as well as from financial instruments. These data differ along several key dimensions, including the type of economic...

The cyclical state of the economy and the natural rate of unemployment are key unobserved variables in policymakers' analysis of economic developments. The price Phillips curve relates the measures of resource utilization—often through deviations of the unemployment rate from the natural rate...