The Unemployment Insurance (UI) system in the United States has played a decisive lifeline role in effectively mitigating the economic and social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which prompted the largest expansion of UI programs in history, one that is unprecedented in scope, scale and cost....

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 study the real-time signals provided by the Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti Index of Business conditions (ADS) for tracking economic activity at high frequency. We start with exit from the Great Recession, comparing the evolution of real-time vintage beliefs to a "final" late-vintage chronology. We...

As is well known, during the pandemic recession firms directly exposed to the virus, i.e. the "contact" sector, contracted sharply and recovered slowly relative to the rest of the economy. Less understood is how firms that "won" by offering safer substitutes for contact sector goods have...

In response to the record-breaking COVID19 recession, many governments have adopted unprecedented fiscal stimuli. While countercyclical fiscal policy is effective in fighting conventional recessions, little is known about the effectiveness of fiscal policy in the current environment with...