A number of industries underwent large and permanent reductions in employment growth at the beginning of this decade, a process we label as restructuring. We describe how restructuring occurred and what its consequences were for the economy. In particular, we find that restructuring stemmed...

This paper finds that the permanent job losses associated with industrial restructuring have significantly boosted the variance of unemployment, causing it to rise much higher in recessions than it would have without cyclically correlated restructuring. Moreover, the influence of restructuring...

I examine whether the cyclical behavior of unemployment has changed over the post WWII period. Specifically, I test whether cyclical movements in unemployment have become more persistent. Finding that they have, indeed, become more persistent, I then take some initial steps in explaining why. I...

This paper presents a framework to study movements in the matching efficiency of the labor market and highlights two observable factors affecting matching efficiency: (i) unemployment composition and (ii) dispersion in labor market conditions, the fact that tight labor markets coexist with slack...

This paper presents a framework to interpret movements in the Beveridge curve and analyze unemployment fluctuations. We decompose the unemployment rate into three main components: (1) a component driven by changes in labor demand--movements along the Beveridge curve and shifts in the Beveridge...

In the spring of 2020, many observers relied heavily on weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits (UI) to estimate contemporaneous reductions in US employment induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Though UI claims provided a timely, high-frequency window into mounting layoffs, the...

This paper presents estimates of the effect of emergency and extended unemployment benefits (EEB) on the unemployment rate and the labor force participation rate using a data set containing information on individuals likely eligible and ineligible for EEB back to the late 1970s. To identify...