Small businesses continue to report problems in obtaining the financing they need. Because small business owners may rely heavily on the value of their homes to finance their businesses (through mortgages or home equity lines), the fall in housing prices might be one of the causes of their...

Experience has taught economic forecasters to expect a recession when the yield on short-term Treasury securities rises above the yield on longer-term securities—a situation known as a yield-curve inversion. But some economists suspect the yield curve might not be as reliable a predictor of...

During the Great Recession, the rate at which Americans formed households fell sharply. Though the rate has recently picked up, it isn’t fast enough to make up for the shortfall in household formation that occurred over the last several years. An analysis of recent household formation patterns...

In the latest recession, unemployment rates in the United States increased at a faster pace than in the average OECD country. Since the unemployment rate has been more sensitive to technological shocks in the United States in the past than in other OECD countries, I investigated whether...

The Great Recession brought an end to a 20-year expansion of consumer debt. In its wake is a lively debate about what caused the turnaround. Was it motivated by a decreased appetite for debt by consumers or an unwillingness to lend by banks? Our analysis of Equifax and Mail Monitor data shows...

An analysis of whether the economic downturn that began in mid-1990 hit white-collar workers disproportionately hard. The authors examine the issue from several perspectives and find overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Countries with very flexible institutions and labor market policies, like the U.S., experienced substantial increases in unemployment over the course of the Great Recession, while countries with relatively rigid institutions and strict labor market policies, like France, fared better. However,...