This paper investigates how takeovers create value. Using plant-level data, I show that acquirers increase targets’ productivity through more efficient use of capital and labor. Acquirers significantly reduce capital expenditures, wages, and employment in target plants, though output is...

Since 2007, the labor force participation rate has fallen from about 66 percent to about 63 percent. The sources of this decline have been widely debated among academics and policymakers, with some arguing that the participation rate is depressed due to weak labor demand while others argue that...

Since the beginning of the recent recession, the employment-population ratio for high-school age youth (16-17 years old) has fallen by nearly a third, to its lowest level ever. However, this recession has exacerbated a longer-run downward trend that actually began in the 1990s and accelerated in...

Since 2007, the labor force participation rate has fallen from about 66 percent to about 63 percent. The sources of this decline have been widely debated among academics and policymakers, with some arguing that the participation rate is depressed due to weak labor demand while others argue that...

As of October 2022, the retired share of the U.S. population was nearly 1-½ percentage points above its pre-pandemic level (after adjusting for updated population controls to the Current Population Survey), accounting for nearly all of the shortfall in the labor force participation rate. In...