We explore the sources of household balance sheet adjustment following the collapse of the housing market in 2006. First, we use microdata from the Federal Reserve Board's Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey to document that banks cumulatively tightened consumer lending standards more in counties...

The U.S. unemployment rate has remained stubbornly high since the 2007-2009 recessionleading many to conclude that structural, rather than cyclical, factors are to blame. Relying on astandard job search and matching framework and empirical evidence from a wide array of labormarket indicators, we...

This paper examines gender differentials in the resources of households and individuals across seven welfare states. In its first part, it asks whether female-headed households can secure a living income without recourse to either the state or the income of a male partner. It then steps inside...

Although industrialized nations have long provided public protection to working-age individuals with disabilities, the form has changed over time. The impetus for change has been multi-faceted: rapid growth in program costs; greater awareness that people with impairments are able and willing to...

Using data from the Current Population Survey from 1980 through 2010 we examine what drives variation andcyclicality in the growth rate of real wages over time. We employ a novel decomposition technique that allowsus to divide the time series for median weekly earnings growth into the part...

Unsustainable growth in program costs and beneficiaries, together with a growing recognition that even people with severe impairments can work, led to fundamental disability policy reforms in the Netherlands, Sweden, and Great Britain. In Australia, rapid growth in disability recipiency led to...

Although industrialized nations have long provided public protection to working-age individuals with disabilities, the form has changed over time. The impetus for change has been multi-faceted: rapid growth in program costs; greater awareness that people with impairments are able and willing to...

The U.S. economy is recovering from the financial crisis and ensuing deep recession, but the unemployment rate has remained stubbornly high. Some have argued that the persistent elevation of unemployment relative to historical norms reflects the fact that the shocks that hit the economy were...