6 posts on "Laura Pilossoph"
June 27, 2023
Not Just “Stimulus” Checks: The Marginal Propensity to Repay Debt
Households frequently use stimulus checks to pay down existing debt. In this post, we discuss the empirical evidence on this marginal propensity to repay debt (MPRD), and we present new findings using the Survey of Consumer Expectations. We find that households with low net wealth-to-income ratios were more prone to use transfers from the CARES Act of March 2020 to pay down debt. We then show that standard models of consumption-saving behavior can be made consistent with these empirical findings if borrowers’ interest rates rise with debt. Our model suggests that fiscal policy may face a trade-off between increasing aggregate consumption today and assisting those with the largest debt balances.
October 18, 2022
What Have Workers Done with the Time Freed up by Commuting Less?
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the way Americans spend their time. One of the most enduring shifts has occurred in the workplace, with millions of employees making the switch to work from home. Even as the pandemic has waned, more than 15 percent of full-time employees remain fully remote and an additional 30 percent work in hybrid arrangements (Barrero, Bloom, and Davis). These changes have substantially reduced time spent commuting to work; in the aggregate, Americans now spend 60 million fewer hours traveling to work each day. In this post, we investigate how people spend this saved time on other activities. Using detailed data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), we find that employed individuals allocate their saved commute time toward leisure activities and sleeping, while reducing overall work hours.
January 7, 2022
The Effect of Inequality on the Transmission of Monetary and Fiscal Policy
Monetary policy can have a meaningful impact on inequality, as recent theoretical and empirical studies suggest. In light of this, how should policy be conducted? And how does inequality affect the transmission of monetary policy? These are the topics covered in the second part of the recent symposium on “Heterogeneity in Macroeconomics: Implications for Policy,” hosted by the new Applied Macroeconomics and Econometrics Center (AMEC) of the New York Fed on November 12.
Posted at 7:00 am in Equitable Growth, Fiscal Policy, Inequality, Macroeconomics, Monetary Policy | Permalink
May 13, 2021
Who’s Ready to Spend? Constrained Consumption across the Income Distribution
Spending on goods and services that were constrained during the pandemic is expected to grow at a fast pace as the economy reopens. In this post, we look at detailed spending data to track which consumption categories were the most constrained by the pandemic due to social distancing. We find that, in 2019, high-income households typically spent relatively more on these pandemic-constrained goods and services. Our findings suggest that these consumers may have strongly reduced consumption during the pandemic and will likely play a crucial role in unleashing pent-up demand when pandemic restrictions ease.
February 9, 2021
Black and White Differences in the Labor Market Recovery from COVID‑19
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the various measures put in place to contain it caused a rapid deterioration in labor market conditions for many workers and plunged the nation into recession. The unemployment rate increased dramatically during the COVID recession, rising from 3.5 percent in February to 14.8 percent in April, accompanied by an almost three percentage point decline in labor force participation. While the subsequent labor market recovery in the aggregate has exceeded even some of the most optimistic scenarios put forth soon after this dramatic rise, this recovery has been markedly weaker for the Black population. In this post, we document several striking differences in labor market outcomes by race and use Current Population Survey (CPS) data to better understand them.
Posted at 11:00 am in Demographics, Equitable Growth, Human Capital, Inequality, Labor Market, Pandemic, Recession, Unemployment | Permalink
May 29, 2020
Which Workers Bear the Burden of Social Distancing Policies?
This analysis identifies the types of workers bearing the highest cost from social distancing practices–an issue of great relevance for policymakers trying to address the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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