This paper examines the effect of Hurricane Katrina on Louisiana's state economy. In particular, I use a state coincident index to assess the economic loss from Hurricane Katrina. This alternative approach provides policymakers with a simple and timely measure of the economy for modeling disasters.

This research documents the time series behavior of unemployment rates for Hispanics and whites over the period of 1976-2008. In particular, we provide insight as to how Hispanics fared relative to whites by examining the unemployment rate, the unemployment rate gap, and the cyclical component...

This paper identifies the responses of measures of health care workers' relative compensation to unexpected changes in several macroeconomic variables. The results provide time series information about the relative compensation of workers in the health care sector of the economy. The findings...