We introduce a form of downward nominal wage rigidity that can vary in intensity across a continuum of labor varieties. The model delivers a static wage Phillips curve linking current wage inflation to current unemployment. For standard parameterizations, the dynamics of the model are...

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 recent shift to remote work raised the amenity value of employment. As compensation adjusts to share the amenity-value gains with employers, wage-growth pressures moderate. We find empirical support for this mechanism in the wage-setting behavior of U.S. employers, and we develop novel...

We introduce on-the-job search frictions in an otherwise standard monetary DSGE New-Keynesian model. Heterogeneity in productivity across jobs gives rise to a job ladder. Firms Bertrand-compete for employed workers according to the Sequential Auctions protocol of Postel-Vinay and Robin (2002)....

U.S. inflation has recently surged, with inflation reaching its highest readings since the early 1980s. We examine the drivers of this rise in inflation, focusing on supply chain disruptions, labor supply constraints, and their interaction. Using a calibrated two-sector New Keynesian DSGE model...

We consider a New Keynesian model with downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) and show that government spending is much more effective in stimulating output in a low-inflation recession relative to a high-inflation recession. The government spending multiplier is large when DNWR binds, but the...

Most governments are mandated to maintain their economies at full employment. We propose that the best marker of full employment is the efficient unemployment rate, u*. We define u* as the unemployment rate that minimizes the nonproductive use of labor--both jobseeking and recruiting. The...

We introduce dynamic incentive contracts into a model of unemployment dynamics and present three results. First, wage cyclicality from incentives does not dampen unemployment dynamics: the response of unemployment to shocks is first-order equivalent in an economy with flexible incentive pay and...

We show that the largest increase in unemployment benefits in U.S. history had large spending impacts and small job-finding impacts. This finding has three implications. First, increased benefits were important for explaining aggregate spending dynamics--but not employment dynamics--during the...

At the onset of the COVID pandemic, the U.S. economy suddenly and swiftly lost 20 million jobs. Over the next two years, the economy has been on the recovery path. We assess the labor market two years into the COVID crisis. We show that early employment dynamics were almost entirely driven by...