This work offers new insights into the effects of persistent fiscal deficits on US inflation, revealing that targeted income redistribution during COVID increased short-term inflation significantly. The largest sustainable primary deficit is 4.6% of GDP, or 40% higher than current levels, dependent on how deficit spending is distributed.

One puzzle for researchers in recent decades surrounds two seemingly contradictory facts: The wage gap between Black and White men has remained stubbornly large in recent decades while, over the same period, racial discrimination has steadily declined. This divergence has occurred even as the racial gap in test scores, conditional on education, has also narrowed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled a global health and economic crisis of unprecedented severity. Six months into the pandemic, the death toll in the US is approaching 200,000 and, despite massive fiscal stimulus, the country faces its deepest economic contraction in modern history. Since person-to-person contact is essential for a substantial fraction of the US economy to function, and since such close contact allows the virus to spread easily, both fatalities and economic losses are unavoidable.

Odds are, when you think of workers in a modern industrialized economy, you imagine all kinds of jobs, from those on factory floors and farms, to those in sales, marketing, and business development. You might also imagine that, over time, the percentage of people working in so-called blue-collar jobs, while still the majority, has decreased relative to white-collar workers.

The rebirth of downtown American cities in recent decades has turned neighborhoods that formally housed lower-income families—and that may have also harbored manufacturing, warehousing, and other bygone industries—into thriving high-end residential spaces, where people enjoy new coffee shops, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues.

The promise of the American dream is about the possibility of upward mobility; namely, that anyone, regardless of where they were born and what class they were born into, can achieve success on their own terms.

The second annual Women in Macro Conference brought together influential women economists from around the...