Should the generosity of unemployment benefits and the progressivity of income taxes depend on the presence of business cycles? This paper proposes a tractable model where there is a role for social insurance against uninsurable shocks to income and unemployment, as well as inefficient business...

Knowledge producers conducting research on a particular set of questions may respond to supply and demand shocks by shifting resources to a different set of questions. Cognitive mobility measures the transition from one location to another in idea space. We examine the cognitive mobility flows...

This paper argues that, in studying the monetary policy transmission process, more emphasis should be given to the systematic portion of policy behavior and correspondingly less to random shocks basically because shocks account for a very small fraction of policy-instrument variability. Analysis...

We use discounted cash flow analysis to measure a country's fiscal capacity. Crucially, the discount rate applied to projected cash flows includes a GDP risk premium. We apply our valuation method to the CBO's projections for the U.S. federal government's deficit between 2022 and 2051 and debt...

Since 1980, over 2,000 local governments in US Atlantic and Gulf states have been hit by a hurricane. Such natural disasters can exert severe budgetary pressure on local governments' ability to provide critical infrastructure, goods, and services. We study local government revenue, expenditure,...

The 2007-2010 recession has imposed significant fiscal hardships on state and local governments. The result has been state deficits and the need to increase state taxes, cut spending, and withdraw funds from state rainy day accounts. The primary cause of state budget "gaps" has been the rise in...

In this paper, I review US federal budget rules and present some evidence on their possible effects. From an analysis of how components of the federal budget behaved under the different budget regimes, it appears that the rules did have some effects, rather than simply being statements of policy...

What are the macroeconomic consequences of the dominant role of the dollar in the international monetary system? Here, we present a calibrated two country model in which exports are invoiced in the key currency, and government bonds denominated in the key currency are held internationally to...

Based on this framework, we find that a Future Fund portfolio that included (amongst other potential investments) domestic nominal securities and equities of selected countries would reduce overall balance sheet risk