The fall in the U.S. public debt/GDP ratio from 106% in 1946 to 23% in 1974 is often attributed to high rates of economic growth. This paper examines the roles of three other factors: primary budget surpluses, surprise inflation, and pegged interest rates before the Fed-Treasury Accord of 1951....

We provide a spatial theory of clean growth to assess the global impact of the rise of renewable energy. We model the details of the combined production and transmission network of electricity ("the grid") that determine the supply and losses of energy in space. The local rate of clean energy...

What are the prospects for economic growth in the United States and other advanced countries over the next several decades? U.S. growth for the past 150 years has been surprisingly stable at 2% per year. Growth theory reveals that in the long run, growth in living standards is determined by...

Due to population aging, GDP growth per capita and GDP growth per working-age adult have become quite different among many advanced economies over the last several decades. Countries whose GDP growth per capita performance has been lackluster, like Japan, have done surprisingly well in terms of...

Prior to 2020, the Great Recession was the most important macroeconomic shock to the United States economy in generations. Millions lost jobs and homes. At its peak, one in ten workers who wanted a job could not find one. On an annual basis, the economy contracted by more than it had since the...

This paper evaluates the impact of slowing economic growth on labor market dynamism and misallocation. It provides a model of endogenous growth via imitation in a frictional labor market. The framework accounts for rich data on worker job-to-job transitions as well as stochastic and lifecycle...

The 20th century beheld a dramatic transformation of the family. Some Kuznets style facts regarding structural change in the family are presented. Over the course of the 20th century in the United States fertility declined, educational attainment waxed, housework fell, leisure increased, jobs...

The Second World War II (WWII) was arguably one of the largest shocks to the U.S. economic and production system in history. Historians, business historians, and economists have largely discussed the stimulus that WWII had on U.S. technological advancements. However, its effect on U.S....

Innovation is a key driver of long run economic growth. Studying innovation requires a clear view of the characteristics and behavior of the individuals that create new ideas. A general lack of rich, large-scale data has constrained such analyses. We address this by introducing a new dataset...

Since 1980, US wage growth has been fastest in large cities. Empirically, we show that most of this urban-biased growth reflects wage growth at large Business Services firms, which are also the most intensive users of information and communications technology (ICT) capital in the US economy. We...