We use a dynamic factor model to disentangle changes in prices due to economy-wide (common) shocks, from changes in prices due to idiosyncratic shocks. Using 146 disaggregated individual price series from the U.S. PCE price index, we find that most of the fluctuations in core PCE prices observed...

Seasonal adjustment usually relies on statistical models of seasonality that treat seasonal fluctuations as noise corrupting the 'true' data. But seasonality in economic series often stems from economic behavior such as Christmas-time spending. Such economic seasonality invalidates the...

This paper decomposes consumer price inflation into pure inflation, relative price inflation, and idiosyncratic inflation by estimating a dynamic factor model á la Reis and Watson (2010) on a data set of 146 monthly disaggregated prices from 1995 to 2019. We find that pure inflation is the...

Recently, there has been significant interest in the high levels of rental cost burden being experienced across the United States. Much of this scholarship has focused on rental cost burdens in larger urban areas, or at the national level, and has not explored differences in the prevalence of...

We find that firms located in areas with higher intergenerational mobility are more profitable. Building off the work of Chetty and Hendren (2018a and 2018b)—who provide measures of intergenerational mobility for all commuting zones (essentially, metropolitan areas) within the U.S.—we are...

The National Establishment Time Series (NETS) is a private sector source of U.S. business microdata. Researchers have used state-specific NETS extracts for many years, but relatively little is known about the accuracy and representativeness of the nationwide NETS sample. We explore the...

We estimate the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) out of permanent and transitory shocks to house price appreciation. We consider two different models under which those shocks may affect consumption. In the first one, housing is a risky asset. In the second one, housing has a role as a...

We review developments in research on within-country migration, focusing on internal migration in the U.S. We begin by describing approaches to modelling individuals' migration decisions and equilibrium outcomes across local areas. Next, we summarize evidence regarding the impact of migration on...

The 2003 Survey of Small Business Finances (SSBF) screening interview had significant unit nonresponse and therefore some type of nonresponse adjustment was deemed necessary. The approach used in the 2003 survey differed from that used in previous surveys. The current paper examines the impact...

This paper introduces the "compound confluent hypergeometric" (CCH) distribution. The CCH unifies and generalizes three recently introduced generalizations of the beta distribution: the Gauss hypergeometric (GH) distribution of Armero and Bayarri (1994), the generalized beta (GB) distribution of...