The U.S. economy has been exceeding expectations amid one of the most aggressive monetary policy tightening cycles. This paper provides firm-level evidence showing that abundant cash holdings enable firms to benefit from higher interest rates, thereby reducing net interest payments and mitigate...

This paper studies how and why inflation expectations have changed since the emergence of Covid-19. Using micro-level data from the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers, we show that the distribution of consumer expectations at one-year and five-ten year horizons has widened since the...

This is the third update of the reported Social Unrest Index (Barrett et al. 2022), describing the evolution of social unrest worldwide since June 2023. It shows that the global incidence of unrest has stayed broadly stable in the last year. However, the global distribution has not been even,...

This paper updates the Reported Social Unrest Index of Barrett et al (2020), reviewing recent developments in social unrest worldwide since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic. It shows that unrest was elevated during late 2019, coincident with widespread protests in Latin America. Unrest then...

This paper updates the Reported Social Unrest Index of Barrett et al (2020), reviewing recent developments in social unrest worldwide since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic. It shows that unrest was elevated during late 2019, coincident with widespread protests in Latin America. Unrest then...

Do persistently low nominal interest rates mean that governments can safely borrow more? To address this question, I extend the model of Ghosh et al. [2013] to allow for persistent stochastic changes in nominal interest and growth rates. The key model parameter is the long-run difference between...

I use a monthly panel of provincially-collected central government revenues and conflictfatalities to estimate government revenues lost due to conflict in Afghanistan since 2005. Iidentify causal effects by instrumenting for conflict using pre-sample ethno-linguistic share.Headline estimates are...

Epidemics may have social scarring effects, increasing the likelihood of social unrest. They may also have mitigating effect, suppressing unrest by dissuading social activities. Using a new monthly panel on social unrest in 130 countries, we find a positive cross-sectional relationship between...

I use a monthly panel of provincially-collected central government revenues and conflict fatalities to estimate government revenues lost due to conflict in Afghanistan since 2005. I identify causal effects by instrumenting for conflict using pre-sample ethno-linguistic share. Headline estimates...