The Beveridge curve -- the scatter plot of unemployment rates versus vacancy rates -- has recently shifted inward dramatically. While the Beveridge curve is often used to summarize the state of the labor market, it is not a structural economic relationship. Thus, in order to understand the labor...

The most obvious economic cost of recessions is that workers become involuntarily unemployed. During the average business cycle contraction, total employment declines by about 1.5 percent, the unemployment rate rises by 2.7 percentage points, and it takes almost two years before employment...