Other writing
Non-academic writing
Politics and Income Distribution (with Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde and Pablo Guerron-Quintana)
(Philadelphia Fed Economic Insights)
Using historical political events, we document that political reforms often change the bargaining position of workers and thereby labor’s share of income. Using legal data, we document a labor law channel in this redistribution. This helps us understand how politics affects inequality via the labor share, in line with recent literature.
Make-up Strategies for Monetary Policy
(Philadelphia Fed Economic Insights)
Because of the long-run decline in interest rates, the Federal Reserve cannot stabilize output and inflation in downturns as much as before. To counteract that problem, the Fed has begun exploring strategies for "making up" for inflation shortfalls. These strategies are expected to also stabilize output. This article discusses how these make-up strategies differ from the Fed's previous monetary strategy; it describes different possible make-up strategies; and it explores make-up strategies' advantages and disadvantages. The Fed's new make-up strategy calls for letting rates rise more slowly than otherwise following longer periods of inflation below the Fed’s target. This would allow inflation to average 2 percent during a certain window of time. But this make-up strategy represents an evolution of policymaking, not a revolution overturning past practices.
Partisan politics and macroeconomic policy in economic unions (with Jerry Carlino, Bob Inman, and Nicholas Zarra)
VoxEU column summarizing our research on partisan spending and fiscal multipliers.
Why Are Recessions So Hard To Predict?
(Philadelphia Fed Economic Insights)
Mainstream economics views business cycles as driven by random shocks, making it hard to predict downturns. I discuss theories linking shocks and business cycles and give examples of identified shocks.
Just How Important Are New Businesses?
(Philadelphia Fed Economic Insights)
New businesses are major job generators, so disappointing trends in firm formation have raised concern. I discuss why at least some of the worry might be misplaced.
Financing Fiscal Stimulus (with Harald Uhlig)
VoxEU column summarizing research on fiscal stimulus.
Policy note
Alternative Strategies: How Do They Work? How Might They Help? (with Jonas Arias, Martin Bodenstein, Hess Chung, and Andrea Raffo)
Several structural developments in the U.S. economy—including lower neutral interest rates and a flatter Phillips curve—have challenged the ability of the current monetary policy framework to deliver on the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) dual-mandate goals. This paper explores whether makeup strategies, in which policymakers seek to stabilize average inflation around the inflation target over some horizon, could strengthen the FOMC’s ability to fulfill its dual mandate. The quantitative analysis discussed here suggests that credible makeup strategies may provide some moderate stabilization gains. The practical implementation of these strategies, however, faces a number of challenges that would have to be surmounted for the full benefit of these strategies to be realized.