We develop a trend-cycle Bayesian vector autoregression that jointly estimates the real neutral rate of interest, 𝑟𝑡 ∗, and identifies monetary policy shocks. As a key innovation, the framework allows cyclical shocks, most notably monetary policy shocks, to affect the trend component of...

This paper investigates the degree to which merchants influence consumers' choice of how they pay for transactions. Using data from the Survey and Diary of Consumer Payments Choice, we examine consumers' adherence to their preferred payment method when making in-person transactions. We also...

Revolving credit is at the core of the banking business. Corporate revolving credit lines are demandable claims; therefore, as with a traditional bank run on deposits, sudden widespread drawdowns on credit lines can destabilize the banking sector. However, we show that, unlike with deposits,...

The real effects of monetary policy depend on price stickiness. Existing studies that measure aggregate stickiness using US consumer price index microdata hold the consumption basket fixed. This yields a lower level of stickiness in 2024 compared with 1978. We show instead that stickiness is...

We study how production networks shape the severity of Sudden Stops. We build a small open economy model with collateral constraints and input-output linkages, derive a sufficient statistic that maps network structure onto the amplification of tradable shocks, and show that a planner optimally...

Educational attainment profoundly shapes cumulative earnings trends across US birth cohorts. Between the 1933 and 1977 cohorts, men with an advanced degree experienced rising earnings in both the early-career (ages 25 to 44) and late-career (ages 45 to 64) stages, while those with a...

We use Zip code-level Statistics of Income data from the Internal Revenue Service to measure the distribution of income within U.S. metropolitan areas from 1998 through 2019. Exploiting geographic variation in income distribution over time, we study how unanticipated changes in the monetary...

We provide a parsimonious setup for forecasting U.S. GDP growth and the unemployment rate based on a few fundamental drivers. This setup yields forecasts that are reasonably accurate compared with private-sector and Federal Reserve forecasts over the 1984-2019 and post-COVID-19 pandemic periods....

This paper develops an econometric framework for identifying latent factors that provide real-time estimates of supply and demand conditions shaping goods- and services-related price pressures in the U.S. economy. The factors are estimated using category-specific personal consumption...

This paper shows that global inflation dynamics have a sizable regional component. Using a balanced panel of 61 countries that starts in 1970, we document that while the global factor, defined as the dominant principal component, explains a large portion of inflation variation in advanced...