This paper studies the joint dynamics of real house prices and rents over the past decade. We build a dynamic general equilibrium stochastic life cycle model of housing tenure choice with fully speci?ed markets for homeownership and rental properties, and endogenous house prices and rents....

In March 2010 an Interagency Technical Working Group (ITWG) released guidelines on thresholds and resources for a Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The ITWG recommended that thresholds include in-kind benefits that are accounted for in resources; however, only limited in-kind benefit...

For the United States, there are currently two federal series of data that refer to household expenditures. One is produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, using the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE), and the other is produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, personal consumption...

Previous research [Verbrugge, Randal, 2008a. The puzzling divergence of aggregate rents and user costs, 1980-2004. The Review of Income and Wealth 54(4), 671-699] demonstrated that housing rents and ex ante user costs diverge markedly for extended periods of time, a finding with profound...

This paper analyzes the impact of changes in the competitive market structure on an industry's total factor productivity (TFP) growth. The impact of horizontal mergers on TFP growth is of particular interest. The number of proposed horizontal mergers among U.S. firms totaled 28,818 from 1996 to...

There is a long standing interest in the question of whether or not low income households face the same prices as households with higher incomes. If low income households face lower or higher prices than high income households, then income inequality may be greater or lesser than is suggested by...

This paper examines seasonal differences in monthly employment figures gathered from two Bureau of Labor Statistics programs. One is the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), which is based on mandatory quarterly Unemployment Insurance reports; the other is the Current Employment...

In this note I provide results from ongoing research at the Bureau of Labor Statistics on experimental poverty thresholds.

The Employment Cost Index for wages and salaries is based on a comparison of the average wage rates for the same set of jobs across a three-month interval. Employment for the majority of the jobs remains the same over the three months. However, if the index were based solely on the jobs for...