A large literature has argued that gasoline prices respond more rapidly to increases in oil prices than to decreases in oil prices. Moreover, some of this literature has found heterogeneous asymmetry in gas price responses across cities. Here, we reconsider the causes of heterogeneous asymmetric...

In measuring the returns to education, economists usually focus on the number of years of schooling. But many people would say that the quality of schooling matters, too, even at the high school level. Does the type of high school attended make a difference in future income?

The relationship between unemployment and output growth changes during recoveries.

Given that Americans still spend a considerable portion of their budget on gasoline (just under 4 percent in 2012), it’s important to understand why gas prices don’t always move in sync with oil prices. The latter are determined in a more-or-less centralized market, but the market for gas is...

Since 2001, the pervasiveness of 100-percent smoke-free bans has increased dramatically—from 32 local laws in 2001 to 308 by the end of 2009. The authors use individual-level data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey to examine the effect of these bans in workplaces,...

The recent financial crisis helped emphasize the need for measures of financial conditions. In the wake of the crisis, several researchers and institutions—both private sector and central bank—developed measures of financial stress. These measures are intended to capture, among other things,...

Fifty years ago, Arthur Okun examined the relationship between output growth and the unemployment rate. The empirical relationship of the resulting “Okun’s law” has remained largely intact since then, including during the Great Recession. However, while the law does fit our intuition about...