Private-sector unionization rates have fallen precipitously in the United States over the past half century, from 25% in 1973 to only 7% in 2018. We take a skill-based approach to studying this decline, using data from the Current Population Survey combined with occupation-specific task...

This article explores how financing frictions that originated from the demise of municipal bond insurers affected public sector employment outcomes during the 2008-9 financial crisis. I construct a new data set that combines local governments' characteristics, reliance on bond insurance, bond...

This paper uses a unique data set of local governments’ bond issuance, expenditure, and employment to study the impact of the monoline insurance industry’s demise on local governments’ operations. To show causality, I use an instrumental variable approach that exploits persistent insurance...