We document a robust negative relationship between the log of mean annual hours in an occupation and the standard deviation of log annual hours within that occupation. We develop a unified model of occupational choice and labor supply that features heterogeneity across occupations in the return...

How does wealth taxation differ from capital income taxation? When the return on investment is equal across individuals, a well-known result is that the two tax systems are equivalent. Motivated by recent empirical evidence documenting persistent heterogeneity in rates of return across...

We measure the size of the fiscal multiplier using a heterogeneous-agent model with incomplete markets, capital and rigid prices and wages. The environment encompasses the essential elements necessary for a quantitative analysis of fiscal policy. First, output is partially demand-determined due...

Equilibrium labor market theory suggests that unemployment benefit extensions affect unemployment by impacting both job search decisions by the unemployed and job creation decisions by employers. The existing empirical literature focused on the former effect only. We develop a new methodology...

We identify a key role of factor supply, driven by demographic changes, in shaping several empirical regularities that are a focus of active research in macro and labor economics. In particular, demographic changes alone can account for the large movements of the return to experience over the...

Does the market allocate the right workers to the right jobs? Since observable (to economists) variables account for only a small fraction of the wage variance in the data, to answer this question it is essential to study assortative matching between employers and employees based on their...

We measure the aggregate effect of unemployment benefit duration on employment and the labor force. We exploit the variation induced by Congress' failure in December 2013 to reauthorize the unprecedented benefit extensions introduced during the Great Recession. Federal benefit extensions that...

We critically review recent methodological and empirical contributions aiming to provide a comprehensive assessment of the effects of unemployment benefit extensions on the labor market and attempt to reconcile their apparently disparate findings. We describe two key challenges facing these...

We assess the power of forward guidance—promises about future interest rates—as a monetary tool in a liquidity trap using a quantitative incomplete-markets model. Our results suggest the effects of forward guidance are negligible. A commitment to keep future nominal interest rates low for a...

The stochastic process for earnings is the key element of incomplete markets models in modern quantitative macroeconomics. We show that a simple modification of the canonical process used in the literature leads to a dramatic improvement in the measurement of earnings dynamics in administrative...