Since the spring of 1990, the rates of growth of real income, of nominal income, and of the broad monetary aggregate (M2) have been substantially less than the Federal Reserve had set as targets and than most observers regarded as appropriate. The breakdown of the traditional economic relations...

We analyze the impact of fiscal and monetary stimulus in an economy with mortgage debt, where inflation redistributes from savers to borrowers. We show theoretically that fiscal transfers without future tax increases cause a surge in inflation, increasing consumption demand and house prices. The...

Over the past twenty years, macroeconomic performance has improved markedly in industrialized and developing countries alike. Both inflation and real growth are more stable now than they were in the 1980s. This stability has been accompanied by dramatic changes in financial structure. We examine...

This chapter provides an overview of the federal funds market and how the equilibrium federal fund rate is determined. I devote particular attention to comparing and contrasting the federal funds market before and after 2008, since there were several dramatic changes around that time that...

This study investigates the stability of long-run log-linear demand functions for narrowly defined monetary aggregates (M1, Monetary Base) in the U.S. during the post World War II period. The hypotheses that the individual time series which appear in such equations (real M1, real Monetary Base,...

Was the $278 billion reboot of the $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in early 2021 disbursed equitably to minority communities? This paper provides the first analysis of how PPP funds were disbursed to minority communities in the third and final round of the program, which was...

We explore the sources of racial disparities in small business lending by studying the $806 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which was designed to support small business jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. PPP loans were administered by private lenders but federally guaranteed, largely...

We use Norwegian administrative data and applications for emergency government support to simulate magnitude and distribution of business revenue shock due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We rely on it to analyze the impact of business support policies available in Norway and the United States by...

Using a large-scale survey of U.S. consumers, we study how the large one-time transfers to individuals from the CARES Act affected their consumption, saving and labor-supply decisions. Most respondents report that they primarily saved or paid down debts with their transfers, with only about 15...

The expiration of the temporary $600 boost to weekly UI benefits under the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) led to a sharp, unprecedented, 98 percentage point reduction (on average) in the replacement rate during a time when employment was recovering during the Covid recession....