We compare firms’ financials during the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) and COVID-19. While the two crises featured similar increases in credit spreads, debt and liquid assets decreased during the GFC but increased during COVID-19. In the cross-section, leverage was the primary determinant of...

We develop a method to use disaggregate data to conduct causal inference in macroeconomics. The approach permits one to infer the aggregate effect of a macro treatment using regional outcome data and a valid instrument. We estimate a macro effect without (sine) the aggregation (aggregatio) of...

This paper decomposes the causal effect of government defense spending into: (i) a local (or direct) effect, and (ii) a spillover (or indirect) effect. Using state-level defense spending data, we show that a negative cross-state spillover effect explains the existing simultaneous findings of a...