This article shows that increases in the educational attainment and labor market experience of the U.S. work force have led to an advance in labor productivity of more than 0.2 percentage points per year since the early 1960s. Estimates show, however, some declaration in the pace of labor...

This article shows that even in recent years there is a relatively robust, negative cross-state correlation between appropriate measures of unemployment and wage growth.

The authors examine the recent decline in teen work activity, offering explanations for both the long secular decline since the late 1970s and the recent acceleration in this decline since 2000. They argue that much of this pattern is due to a significant increase in the rewards to formal...

This article explores new evidence from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) on the extent to which “house lock”--the reluctance of households to sell their homes in a declining house price environment--has contributed to the elevated unemployment rate...

We use price data underlying the Consumer Price Index to assess how restaurants, whose prices are generally quite sticky, respond to minimum wage increases. Aggregate prices rise, quickly, by amounts reflecting the increase in costs, and they rise more among fast food outlets and in low-wage...

This paper examines the fertility transition through a new lens: the extensive margin. Parents with high levels of children might substitute quality for quantity as the constraints on quality relax or those on quantity tighten. However, along the extensive margin, the quantity-quality trade-off...

Immediately following a minimum wage hike, household income rises on average by about $250 per quarter and spending by roughly $700 per quarter for households with minimum wage workers. Most of the spending response is caused by a small number of households who purchase vehicles. Furthermore, we...