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...

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...

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 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...

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...

Because plant deaths destroy specific capital with large local economic impacts and potentially important macroeconomic effects, understanding the causes of deaths and, in particular, why they are concentrated in cyclical downturns, is important. The reallocation-timing hypothesis posits that...

This paper presents estimates of the effect of unemployment benefit extensions during the Great Recession on unemployment and labor force participation. Unlike many recent studies of this subject, our estimates, following the work of Hagedorn, Karahan, Manovskii, and Mitman (2016), are inclusive...

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...

An important step in understanding why employment fluctuates cyclically is determining the relative importance of cyclical movements in permanent and temporary plant-level employment changes. If movements in permanent employment changes are important, then recessions are times when the...

Shimer (2005) argues that the Mortensen-Pissarides (MP) model of unemployment lacks an amplification mechanism because it generates less than 10 percent of the observed business cycle fluctuations in unemployment given labor productivity shocks of plausible magnitude. This paper argues that part...