Shelter (housing) costs constitute a large component of price indexes, including 42 percent of the widely followed core Consumer Price Index (CPI). The shelter prices measured in the CPI capture new and existing renters and tend to lag market rents. This lag explains how in recent months the...

Transfers of wealth between generations—whether through inheritances or inter vivos gifts—are less important in explaining racial disparities in wealth than might be expected. While this factor looms large in the media’s discussions of racial inequality, it explains relatively little of...

The failures of several U.S. regional banks have stimulated discussions about the macroeconomic effects of a likely credit contraction triggered by the recent banking turmoil. Drawing on historical evidence from advanced economies, this study documents a sizable and persistent decline in output...

The US economy is at least 50 percent more concentrated today than it was in 2005. In this paper, we estimate the effect of this increase on the pass-through of cost shocks into prices. Our estimates imply that the pass-through becomes about 25 percentage points greater when there is an increase...

This study uses the longitudinal design of the US Current Population Survey to describe sectoral mobility trends for workers before and after the emergence of COVID-19. We find a small increase in the 15-month rate of workers who switched industries following the onset of the pandemic, likely...

Historically, U.S. labor productivity (output per hour) and total factor productivity (TFP) rose in booms and fell in recessions. Different models of business cycles explain this procyclicality differently. Traditional Keynesian models relied on \\"factor hoarding,\\" that is, variations in how...

Using information from the all-payer claims database for Rhode Island covering more than three-quarters of health insurance enrollees in the state from April 2011 through May 2019, this paper offers new measures of the association between the Medicaid expansion and the rate of receipt of...

I examine the impact of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet reduction on short-term interest rates emanating from the declining supply of reserve balances. Using an exogenous shift in the supply of reserves, I estimate that by January 2019, when the Fed will have reduced its portfolio by $500...

The Main Street Lending Program (Main Street) was one of several new credit facilities launched by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Federal Reserve published draft terms for Main Street on April 9, 2020, and the...

Using highly disaggregated personal consumption expenditures data, I analyze whether the recent inflation run-up is explained by supply shocks more than by demand shocks, and whether these demand and supply shocks are likely persistent or transitory. I develop a new decomposition method that...