National Bureau of Economic Research

Gita Gopinath, the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, delivered the 2022 Martin Feldstein Lecture, on “Managing a Turn in the Global Economy.” She described the policy challenges facing emerging markets, many of which have experienced rising debt-to-GDP ratios in the last decade, as global interest rates increase. She highlighted the need to integrate a range of policy instruments, including but not limited to the flexible exchange rates and domestic interest rates that are the focus of the conventional analysis, in designing a policy response. The Feldstein Lecture Series was launched in 2009 by the NBER Board of Directors to celebrate the contributions of distinguished economist and long-time NBER President Martin Feldstein, who passed away in 2019.

Forty percent of US workers have access to employer-provided short-term disability insurance (STDI). This insurance generally pays benefits to disabled workers during the five-month waiting period between disability onset and when Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits can commence. By providing income during the waiting period, STDI may encourage more disabled workers to apply for SSDI, leading to more SSDI awards. However, employers who offer STDI have a stronger financial incentive to offer accommodations to disabled workers to help them to remain on the job instead of taking up STDI benefits, which could reduce SSDI applications and awards.

Examining the effect of STDI access on SSDI applications and awards is challenging, since workers with and without STDI access may differ in ways that affect…

Three new working papers distributed this week report on the economic, health, and related consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and public policies that respond to it. One, drawing on data from many countries, evaluates the efficacy of social media campaigns in increasing demand for vaccines and knowledge about where to get them (30273). Another documents a sharp rise in the closure rate of small businesses early in the pandemic (30285). Yet another investigates the effect of working from home on worker productivity and quit rates (30292).

More than 575 NBER working papers have addressed various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. These papers are open access and have been collected for easy reference. Like all NBER papers, they are circulated for discussion and comment, and have not been peer-reviewed. View the papers in reverse chronological order or filter by topic area.

From December 2019 to November 2021, US house prices grew by 23.8 percent, the fastest rate on record. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped where and how Americans work. In November 2021, 42.8 percent of employees worked from home either part- or full-time. Some reports suggest that a significant fraction of pandemic-induced remote work may become permanent.

In Housing Demand and Remote Work (NBER Working Paper 30041), John A. Mondragon and Johannes Wieland find that the shift to...

When the NBER’s Program on the Economics of Aging began in 1986 under the direction of David Wise, the baby-boom generation was between the ages of 22 and 40. Long-run projections at the time forecast that the United States would transition to an older population distribution. Today, with baby boomers ranging in age from 58 to 76, that projected future is the ongoing reality of our nation. One-fifth of the population will be age 65 or older in the next decade.

Since its inception, the Economics of Aging Program’s underlying focus has been the study of the health and financial well-being of people as they age and the larger implications of a population that is increasingly composed of older people. The program continues this broad focus as new and ongoing challenges emerge and…

Millions of elderly veterans are “dually eligible” to receive hospital care in two distinct settings: at public facilities funded by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) or at private hospitals that accept Medicare reimbursement. The choice of setting is consequential for both the costs of their care and health outcomes, as demonstrated in Is There a VA Advantage? Evidence from Dually Eligible Veterans (NBER Working Paper 29765) by David C. Chan, Jr., David Card, and Lowell Taylor.

Veterans who choose to receive care in VA hospitals are, on average, sicker than those who choose private hospitals. As a result of this health…

In Private or Public Equity? The Evolving Entrepreneurial Finance Landscape (NBER Working Paper 29532), Michael Ewens and Joan Farre-Mensa survey the changes in the US entrepreneurial finance market over the last two decades. Their study begins by describing the differences between publicly listed and private firms, and then explores how several regulatory, technological, and competitive changes affecting both startups and investors have affected the costs and benefits of going public. The paper emphasizes the growing costs of the disclosures required of public firms, and also observes that major technological changes have reduced the initial capital investment…