This paper investigates the incentive of credit rating agencies (CRAs) to bias ratings using a semiparametric, ordered-response model. The proposed model explicitly takes conflicts of interest into account and allows the ratings to depend flexibly on risk attributes through a semiparametric...

Income inequality in the United States has been on the rise. To understand why, we use several complementary techniques to decompose total income inequality into components attributable to five personal traits: sex, race, education, occupation, and industry of work. By examining how income...

Based on a dynamic panel data model, this paper estimates the impact of lockdown policies on inflation with metropolitan-level data in the US. After controlling for the unit/time fixed effects and a number of aggregate demand/supply shifters, lockdown policies created a mild inflationary effect...