Search results

While household well-being derives from long-term average rates of consumption, welfare comparisons typically rely on shorter-duration survey measurements. We develop a new strategy to identify the distribution of these long-term rates by leveraging a large-scale randomization in Iraq that elicited repeated short-duration measurements from diaries and recall questions. Identification stems from diary-recall differences in reports from the same household, does not require reports to be error-free, and hinges on a research design with broad replicability. Our strategy delivers practical and costeffective suggestions for designing survey modules to yield the closest measurements of consumption well-being. In addition, we find little empirical support for the claim that acquisition diaries yield the most accurate measurement of poverty and inequality and offer new insights to interpret and reconcile diary-recall differences in household surveys.

Inequality in Latin America fell substantially in the early 2000s. In this paper, we take advantage of administrative matched employee-employed data in Brazil, Chile and Ecuador to examine whether these inequality trends held in the formal sector, as well. We document a significant decrease in the log variance of earnings in Brazil and Ecuador in the early 2000s, whereas inequality in Chile between 2008 and 2015 remained largely flat. In this context, we find that inequality among salaried workers is largely a between-firm phenomenon across these three countries. We expand on our descriptive analysis and estimate an additive worker and firm fixed effects model to understand the driving factors behind inequality in the region. We find a significant decline in between-firm inequality in Brazil and a modest one in Chile. We last focus our attention on the commodities and manufacturing sectors, which were directly exposed to two large external shocks, the commodity-boom and the ''China Shock". We find an increase in inequality in the former sector accompanied by an reduction in inequality in the latter across the region.

When fewer firms open, it can weigh heavily on the job market.

Cropper discusses a recent working paper that assesses the full benefits and costs of the groundbreaking law’s many programs to protect the environment.

The tools we have to understand what is happening to the economy are becoming distorted or harder to interpret.

Two new indicators designed to gauge economic activity on a real-time basis show that the U.S. has already experienced an economic crisis sharper than the 2008 recession and continues to deteriorate.

We must deliberately spend and invest in ways that will strengthen our capitalist economy and expand economic security, she writes

States' short-time compensation, or shared-work programs, are effective in helping retain trained staff members during COVID-19 outbreak

Economists expect as many as a record 20 million job losses and an unemployment rate of around 15% in the April job report

Susan W. Parker, Public Policy