Chapter 24 — Further Reading

On unemployment measurement and types

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Handbook of Methods, Chapter 1: "Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey" (bls.gov) The official methodology. Clearly written and free online.

Robert Hall, "Employment Fluctuations with Equilibrium Wage Stickiness," American Economic Review, 2005 A leading macroeconomist's analysis of why wages don't fall enough during recessions to clear the labor market.

Laurence Ball, "Hysteresis in Unemployment: Old and New Evidence," NBER Working Paper, 2009 The key paper on hysteresis — evidence that recessions permanently raise the natural rate.

On racial unemployment disparities

William Darity Jr. and Patrick Mason, "Evidence on Discrimination in Employment: Codes of Color, Codes of Gender," Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1998 A comprehensive review of evidence on racial and gender discrimination in labor markets.

Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal?" American Economic Review, 2004 Cited in Chapter 21. The most famous audit study on racial discrimination in hiring.

On the 2008 and COVID recessions

Atif Mian and Amir Sufi, House of Debt, 2014 On the 2008 recession — how household debt drove the contraction.

Raj Chetty et al., Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker (tracktherecovery.org) Real-time COVID economic data by income, sector, and geography. The most detailed evidence for the K-shaped recovery.

Jason Furman, "U.S. Economic Policy Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic," Brookings, 2021 Analysis of the fiscal response and its effects on employment.

On unemployment insurance

Johannes Schmieder and Till von Wachter, "The Effects of Unemployment Insurance Benefits: New Evidence and Interpretation," Annual Review of Economics, 2016 The most comprehensive review of the empirical literature on UI effects.

Peter Ganong, Pascal Noel, and Joseph Vavra, "US Unemployment Insurance Replacement Rates During the Pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, 2020 On the 2020 UI expansion — how many workers earned more on UI than at work, and why.

A reading order recommendation

Read Ball's hysteresis paper for the most important theoretical point. Read the Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker for the most detailed COVID data. Read Schmieder-von Wachter for the UI debate.

Chapter 25 — Economic Growth — completes Part V.