We develop comprehensive estimates of U.S. economic activity by sector, legal form of organization, and firm size to characterize how four government direct lending programs relate to these classes of economic activity.
The markup of price over marginal cost increases in response to a positive shock to demand and TFP but decreases in response to an investment-specific technology shock. In contrast, how the markup is measured matters for its unconditional cyclicality.
Using individual-level CPS data, we show that the decline in middle-wage routine occupations over the past 40 years is mainly due to decreased transitions into these jobs from non-participation and unemployment, driven by individuals' lower propensity to make such transitions rather than demographic shifts, and that this also significantly contributes to the recent rise in U.S. nonparticipation.
This paper presents a forecasting model of unemployment based on labor force flows data that, in real time, dramatically outperforms the Survey of Professional Forecasters, historical forecasts from the Federal Reserve Board's Greenbook, and basic time-series models.
An increase in government demand raises output and hours in manufacturing industries, lowers real product wages and labor productivity, and has no effect on the markup.