Research

During the COVID period, the vacancy-to-unemployment ratio (V/U) emerged as a more accurate measure of labor market tightness than the unemployment rate (U).  However, some argue that this claim may be over-fitting the COVID-19 pandemic episode. This paper addresses this critique by using pre-pandemic time-series data and exploits better identification from Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)-level panel data. I construct state-space models and apply the Kalman filter to MSA-level panel data, thereby jointly estimating a non-linear Phillips curve and time-varying natural rates of U and V/U. Time series data alone cannot distinguish between the two measures on pre-pandemic data, but panel data indicates that V/U is superior. These findings show that V/U was a better measure of economic slack even before the pandemic, and suggest a greater role for it in economic forecasting and monetary policy.

The national Beveridge curve shifted outward significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020M4–2022M4) compared to the pre-pandemic period (2009M7–2020M3), but the underlying determinants remain debated. This paper investigates these drivers using cross-sectional variation across states and industries. We introduce a novel geometric measure to quantify shifts, defined as the distance along the $45$-degree line between pre-pandemic and pandemic-era curves. Industry-level analysis shows larger shifts in sectors with lower wages and limited remote-work options. Through a Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides framework decomposition, we demonstrate that changes in matching efficiency and separation rate correlate with these industry traits respectively.  State-level shifts strongly associate with industry composition and COVID-19 infection rates. Our findings suggest that expanded unemployment insurance, limited telework capacity, and COVID-19 severity jointly drove the aggregate Beveridge curve shift during the pandemic.

This paper examines how exchange rates respond to geopolitical risk (GPR) and trade policy uncertainty (TPU) shocks using a panel local projection framework. We analyze monthly bilateral exchange rates of advanced economy and most freely floating emerging market currencies against the U.S. dollar from 1985 to 2025. We document two main findings. First, large global GPR shocks, defined as those above the 90th percentile, exhibit threshold effects, causing advanced economy currencies to depreciate against the U.S. dollar more strongly and more significantly than those of emerging markets. In contrast, country-specific GPR shocks trigger pronounced depreciation in emerging market currencies, while responses in advanced economies are delayed and less statistically significant. Second, TPU shocks above the same threshold lead to significant depreciation against the U.S. dollar across both country groups, with larger effects on emerging markets. Our results highlight the non-linearity of GPR and TPU shocks and their differential impacts across country groups.