The effect of generous unemployment benefits on the propensity of individuals to stay on unemployment was hotly debated during the COVID pandemic. This paper examines the impact of the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) using rich individual data for the universe of all UI...

Although public policy is influenced by the perception that workers worry about the impact of trade on their jobs, there is little empirical evidence on what shapes such views. This paper uses new data to examine how workers' perceptions of the impact of trade are related to their career paths,...

It is an established fact that there are high levels of employment volatility in the United States. Despite the importance of employer-provided benefits in the US health insurance system, the impact of prior job instability on one's future ability to obtain insurance coverage is not well...

In the U.S. labor market, the vacancy-unemployment ratio and employment react sluggishly to productivity shocks. The authors show that the job matching model in its standard form cannot reproduce these patterns due to excessively rapid vacancy responses. Extending the model to incorporate sunk...

The potential benefit of policies that eliminate a small likelihood of economic crises is calculated. An economic crisis is defined as an increase in unemployment of the magnitude observed during the Great Depression. For the U.S., the maximum-likelihood estimate of entering a depression is...

The analysis uses data from the March Current Population Survey to estimate state-level cross-section/time-series models of the effects of unemployment on alternative poverty indexes. The indexes include the official headcount rate and alternatives based on improved identification and...

This paper uses new data on job creation and job destruction to find evidence of a link between the jobless recoveries of the last two recessions and the recent decline in aggregate volatility known as the Great Moderation. The author finds that the last two recessions are characterized by...

Presented by Charles I. Plosser, President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia> The Philadelphia Chapter of the Risk Management Association, Philadelphia, PA, January 11, 2011