Using newly digitized unemployment insurance claims data we construct a historical monthly unemployment series for U.S. states going back to January 1947. The constructed series are highly correlated with the Bureau of Labor Statics' state-level unemployment data, which are only available from...

Our ability to forecast degrades rapidly the further out we predict. Even if we do manage to accurately forecast an event, the magnitude and consequences of that event usually astonish us. On the rare occasion where we manage to accurately forecast the event, its magnitude and consequences, our...

Using newly digitized unemployment insurance claims data we construct a historical monthly unemployment series for U.S. states going back to January 1947. The constructed series are highly correlated with the Bureau of Labor Statics' state-level unemployment data, which are only available from...

Using newly digitized unemployment insurance claims data we construct a historical monthly unemployment series for U.S. states going back to January 1947. The constructed series are highly correlated with the Bureau of Labor Statics' state-level unemployment data, which are only available from...

There is now considerable evidence that business cycle variation in output and employment in the U.S. diÞers in expansions and contractions. We present nonparametric evidence that asymmetries are strongest in durable goods manufacturing. In a Markov switching framework, we find two leading...

The paper examines the processes underlying economic fluctuations by investigating the volatility moderation of U.S. economy in the early 1980's. We decompose the volatility decline using a dynamic factor framework into a common stochastic trend, common transitory component and idiosyncratic...