Takeaway: The post-pandemic rise in remote work causally drove a historic surge in full-time employment for people with physical disabilities, accounting for up to 85 percent of their recent job gains. Key Points For every 1 percentage point increase in work-from-home availability within an occupation, full-time employment for workers with a physical disability grew by 1.0 to 1.3 percent. The surge in remote work accounts for 68 to 85 percent of the post-pandemic increase in

Takeaway: When intensifying climate disasters lead insurers to drop homeowners' policies rather than raise prices, standard mortgage rules can trigger a cascade of "technical defaults," driving up foreclosures, depressing home values, and weakening local economies. Key Points The Insurance-Mortgage Link: Mortgages require hazard insurance. When insurers refuse to renew policies, homeowners who cannot secure expensive replacement coverage risk technical default and foreclosure

Takeaway: Even when individuals graduate from the exact same doctoral programs with comparable research output, first-generation graduates face persistent penalties in hiring, pay, and promotion compared to their socioeconomically advantaged peers. Key Points A persistent class penalty: First-generation college graduates in academia are 10% less likely to secure tenure at top research universities and earn lower salaries than classmates from privileged backgrounds who attende

Takeaway: Conventional economic wisdom holds that when a central bank cuts interest rates, commercial banks lower their own lending rates to encourage borrowing. However, new research shows that because of how central banks shift market liquidity, rate cuts can actually cause heavily constrained banks to raise loan rates and reduce lending. Key Points Policy Mechanism: Central banks change interbank interest rates by buying or selling government bonds, which directly alters t

Revealing salaries can help to reduce pay gaps, but is there a downside? Takeaway: This paper synthesizes international economic research to evaluate how different types of pay transparency laws—peer-to-peer disclosures, managerial pay visibility, and salary ranges in job postings—reshape worker motivation, salary negotiations, and employer hiring strategies. Key Points Peer transparency shrinks wage gaps, but can lower overall pay: Making salaries visible among direct cowork

Takeaway: Providing mobile phone credits to low-income adults during a crisis significantly reduces mental distress and domestic conflicts, particularly when distributed in regular installments rather than a single lump sum. Key Points Reduced Psychological Strain: Free mobile credit lowered mental distress by nearly 10% and reduced the likelihood of severe mental distress by 24% among low-income adults in Ghana during the COVID-19 pandemic. Installments Outperformed Lump Sum

How Policy Choices Shape Prices, Battery Range, and Charging Networks Takeaway: Government cash rebates for electric vehicle purchases prompt automakers to lower prices but also trim driving ranges, creating a sharp trade-off for policymakers between maximizing total vehicle sales and maximizing overall consumer welfare. Key Points Unexpected Adjustments: Direct cash rebates for electric vehicles (EVs) led carmakers to produce cheaper, lower-range models rather than simply di

Takeaway: A sharp pullback in U.S. military funding for university research in the 1970s led to persistent declines in academic faculty size, doctoral student training, and scientific publications, ultimately dampening long-run technological innovation. The study explores the systemic consequences of a major contraction in public research funding to assess whether scientific capacity is significantly easier to dismantle than to rebuild. Key Points Academic Shrinkage: Academic

This study uses randomized admissions lotteries to examine how different types of charter schools affect students' long-term educational paths, revealing that state test scores do not always predict whether a school helps its students earn a college degree.

Joining an emissions trading scheme can lower a company’s borrowing costs, but only if the carbon market is active enough to give banks a reliable signal of the firm's environmental health.

The House of Representatives passes the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act aimed directly at gas prices. If it passes in the Senate,

Most of the US workforce was negatively impacted by the pandemic in 2020. But as restrictions for most industries have eased up and...

Large mortality differences exist between states, a recent article by Benjamin Couillard in the Journal of Economic Perspectives....

Businesses can adjust to rising input costs in several ways. This paper explains how government policy changes and neighborhood factors...