New Evidence on Cyclical Variation in Average Labor Costs in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 102 (5) ◽  
pp. 966-979 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Weishi Gu ◽  
Eswar Prasad ◽  
Thomas Moehrle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
The United States ◽  
Labor Costs ◽  
Cyclical Variation ◽  
Major Benefit ◽  
Prior Literature ◽  
New Evidence

We provide new evidence on the cyclicality of employers' real labor costs using BLS establishment job data for the 1982–2018 period. Average straight-time wages have become countercyclical since the financial crisis and the subsequent Great Recession. So have benefit expenditures and overall labor costs, as well as major benefit expenditures, including health insurance and Social Security. Consistent with prior literature, we find that total earnings—the sum of straight-time wages, bonuses, and overtime earnings—were procyclical before 2008; even earnings have become countercyclical since then. The increasing countercyclicality of labor costs is largely attributable to periods with below-trend GDP.

scholarly journals Why Does the Economy Fall to Pieces after a Financial Crisis?

2010 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E Hall
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Financial Frictions ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Real Gdp ◽  
History Of ◽  
Low Levels

The worst financial crisis in the history of the United States and many other countries started in 1929. The Great Depression followed. The second-worst struck in the fall of 2008 and the Great Recession followed. Commentators have dwelt endlessly on the causes of these and other deep financial collapses. This article pursues modern answers to a different question: why does output and employment collapse after a financial crisis and remain at low levels for several or many years after the crisis. It focuses on events in the United States since 2008. Existing macroeconomic models account successfully for the immediate effects of a financial crisis on output and employment. I will lay out a simple macro model that captures the most important features of modern models and show that realistic increases in financial frictions that occurred in the crisis of late 2008 will generate declines in real GDP and employment of the magnitude that occurred. But this model cannot explain why GDP and employment failed to recover once the financial crisis subsided—the model implies a recovery as soon as financial frictions return to normal. At the end of the article, I will mention some ideas that are in play to explain the persistent adverse effects of temporary crises, but have yet to be incorporated into the mainstream model.

Lending to the Borrower from Hell

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauricio Drelichman ◽  
Hans-Joachim Voth
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
Risk Sharing ◽  
The United States ◽  
Philip Ii ◽  
Loan Contracts ◽  
The Right ◽  
Intelligent Model ◽  
New Evidence

Why do lenders time and again loan money to sovereign borrowers who promptly go bankrupt? When can this type of lending work? As the United States and many European nations struggle with mountains of debt, historical precedents can offer valuable insights. This book looks at one famous case—the debts and defaults of Philip II of Spain. Ruling over one of the largest and most powerful empires in history, King Philip defaulted four times. Yet he never lost access to capital markets and could borrow again within a year or two of each default. Exploring the shrewd reasoning of the lenders who continued to offer money, the book analyzes the lessons from this historical example. Using detailed new evidence collected from sixteenth-century archives, the book examines the incentives and returns of lenders. It provides powerful evidence that in the right situations, lenders not only survive despite defaults—they thrive. It also demonstrates that debt markets cope well, despite massive fluctuations in expenditure and revenue, when lending functions like insurance. The book unearths unique sixteenth-century loan contracts that offered highly effective risk sharing between the king and his lenders, with payment obligations reduced in bad times. A fascinating story of finance and empire, this book offers an intelligent model for keeping economies safe in times of sovereign debt crises and defaults.

A Global Perspective on Securitized Debt

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven L Schwarcz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Capital Market ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Capital Markets Union ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Asset Backed Securities ◽  
The Eu

Securitisation represents a significant worldwide source of capital market financing. European investors commonly invest in asset-backed securities issued in U.S. securitisation transactions, and vice versa One of the key goals of the European Commission's proposed Capital Markets Union (CMU) is to further facilitate securitisation as a source of capital market financing as a viable alternative to bank-based finance for companies operating in the EU. To that end, this chapter explains securitisation and attempts to put its rise, its decline after the global financial crisis, and its recent CMU-inspired revival into a global perspective. It examines not only securitisation's relationship to the financial crisis but also post-crisis comparative regulatory approaches in the EU and the United States.

The Impact of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid Expansions on the Sources of Health Insurance Coverage of Undergraduate Students in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 107755872110158
Author(s):  
Priyanka Anand ◽  
Dora Gicheva
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
The Affordable Care Act ◽  
Medicaid Expansions

This article examines how the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions affected the sources of health insurance coverage of undergraduate students in the United States. We show that the Affordable Care Act expansions increased the Medicaid coverage of undergraduate students by 5 to 7 percentage points more in expansion states than in nonexpansion states, resulting in 17% of undergraduate students in expansion states being covered by Medicaid postexpansion (up from 9% prior to the expansion). In contrast, the growth in employer and private direct coverage was 1 to 2 percentage points lower postexpansion for students in expansion states compared with nonexpansion states. Our findings demonstrate that policy efforts to expand Medicaid eligibility have been successful in increasing the Medicaid coverage rates for undergraduate students in the United States, but there is evidence of some crowd out after the expansions—that is, some students substituted their private and employer-sponsored coverage for Medicaid.

scholarly journals Trends over time in enrollment in non-group health insurance plans by tobacco use in the United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 46-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael F. Pesko ◽  
Johanna Catherine Maclean ◽  
Cameron M. Kaplan ◽  
Steven C. Hill
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Tobacco Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Group Health ◽  
Trends Over Time ◽  
Group Health Insurance ◽  
Over Time
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document