Monetary policy is conventionally understood to influence labor demand, with little effect on labor supply. We estimate the response of labor market flows to high-frequency changes in interest rates around FOMC announcements and Fed Chair speeches and find that, in contrast to the consensus...

The Global Repository of Income Dynamics (GRID) is a new open-access, cross- country database that contains a wide range of micro statistics on income inequality, dynamics, and mobility. It has four key characteristics: it is built on micro panel data drawn from administrative records; it fully...

Schumpeter's concept of creative destruction as the engine of capitalist development is well-known. However, that the destructive part of creative destruction is a social cost and therefore biases our estimate of the impact of the innovation on NNP and on welfare is hardly acknowledged, with the...

Much debate exists around the impact that illegal file sharing may have on the creative industries. Similarly, opinions differ regarding whether the producers of artistic works should be forced to accept any weakening of intellectual property rights resulting from illegal file sharing, or if...

Does temperature affect economic performance? Has temperature always affected social welfare through its impact on physical and cognitive function? While many economic studies have explored the indirect links between climate and welfare (e.g. agriculture, conflict, sea-level rise), few address...

We show that unemployed individuals maintain significant access to credit. Following job loss, the unconstrained borrow, while the constrained default and delever. Both defaulters and borrowers are using credit to smooth consumption. We quantitatively show that long-term credit relationships and...

Chapter 6 from the forthcoming Inclusive Wealth Report 2022 looks at human capital in greater detail, based on the latest human capital estimates from the Inclusive Wealth Report (IWR) project. In the chapter, which is repeated here, the growth of human capital and several of its constituent...

This paper studies people's understanding of inflation--their perceived causes, consequences, trade-offs--and the policies supported to mitigate its effects. We design a new, detailed online survey based on the rich existing literature in economics with two experimental components--a conjoint...

The pandemic triggered a large, lasting shift to work from home (WFH). To study this shift, we survey full-time workers who finished primary school in 27 countries as of mid 2021 and early 2022. Our cross-country comparisons control for age, gender, education, and industry and treat the U.S....

Small and young businesses are essential for job creation, innovation, and economic growth. Even most of the superstar firms start their business life small and then grow over time. Small firms have less internal resources, which makes them more fragile and sensitive to macroeconomic conditions....