This project will investigate how individual specific inflation rates affect the transmission of monetary policy. This research seeks to extend previous work to understand if inflation inequality matters for aggregate monetary policy response by using a quantitative model similar to Kaplan, Moll, and Violante to investigate how the joint-distribution between inflation rates and wealth (liquid and illiquid) matter for aggregate monetary policy response. Also, while inflation inequality between income groups and individuals differs over time, this work also seeks to uncover whether dispersion has increased, following income inequality trends. Nielsen Homescan consumer panel data will be used to measure household’s nondurable consumption.

This project will create a publicly available database of statutory and administrative laws governing the ability of ex-offenders to be granted an occupational license for all universally licensed occupations in the United States. The newly created time-series will be linked with Census microdata, including data from the American Community Survey, Current Population Survey, and Survey of Income and Program Participation. The research team will then use the changes in these ex-offender occupational licensing laws over time and across states to estimate the impact of these laws on the labor market outcomes of workers, with particular attention to the labor market outcomes of minorities. There are very few high-quality studies of the impacts of such licensing laws on employment and earnings among individuals with felonies. This research creates a new, detailed, and valuable dataset of state occupational licensing laws, which will allow both this research team and future researchers to study the impact of these laws on wage and employment outcomes.

How can estimates of microlevel causal effects be mapped into general equilibrium counterfactuals? Using a derivation of the central general equilibrium invariance result, this work studies general equilibrium counterfactuals for income tax rebate stimulus. The project develops a theoretically valid approximation of general equilibrium effects of spending and investment shocks in business-cycle models. It then uses estimates of responses to certain types of shocks to develop estimates of the impact of certain types of policies, which include general equilibrium effects. This research will add to our understanding of the effect of stimulus tools on the macroeconomy.

This project investigates the impact of wage increases at large employers in the United States. It will study the wages of other similarly skilled workers in the labor market exposed to one of these large employers in order to better understand how actions by firms, the government, and worker advocacy organizations influence wages in their local labor markets more broadly. This topic helps to contribute to our understanding of how to improve economic outcomes at the bottom of the earnings distribution. The research uses a difference-in-difference design and will compare outcomes for similarly skilled workers that are exposed versus not-exposed to one of the major employers when that employer changes its wage policy. They will use Burning Glass data to isolate spillovers from mechanical effects since they will be able to look at posted wages for employers that are not the ones changing their wage policy.

The extent to which capital and labor are substitutes and how this substitutability shapes worker outcomes is a key determinant of economic inequality. This project proposes to study the effect of bonus depreciation on worker outcomes using employer-employee matched Census data in order to understand whether capital investments in the form of new technologies are replacing workers and whether the impact is different for workers of various skill levels.

Much of the theory of market design operates in two extreme environments: One where monetary transfers are prohibited, and one where there are transfers but each individual values one dollar in the same way. This research seeks to understand how to optimally design goods markets in the presence of wealth inequality and is conducted across three discrete research papers. The first project develops an analytic framework for a middle ground where agents are wealth constrained or have income effects. The second project develops a continuous-time model of dynamic capital taxation, and the third project considers dynamic effects of inequality using formal models.