Wage inequality has increased dramatically in the US since the 1970s, largely driven by within-firm earnings inequality. This column uses combined data from three large micro datasets to study the drivers and implications of within-firm inequality. It shows that employees across the entire wage distribution gain from higher firm productivity, but these gains are unequally […]
Vaccine hesitancy continues to pose a challenge not only for low- and middle-income countries, but also for many high-income countries, many of which are confronted with significant within-country variation in vaccine take-up. This column examines the potential role of historical factors and provides evidence that, in the context of Germany, county-level vaccination rates today can […]
Why don’t more households participate in the stock market? The two reasons often cited in the literature are risk aversion and frictions that prevent participation, such as the cost of maintaining a brokerage account or of paying attention to the markets. This column exploits firms switching their default asset allocation from a money market fund […]
Carbon pricing initiatives, in the form of carbon taxes or emissions trading systems, have mushroomed in the last two decades, providing an opportunity to better understand their economic consequences. This column shows that emissions trading systems are associated with larger volatility in consumer price inflation, while no significant impact is found in the case of […]
Bitcoin dropped 7.8% to $59,215 at 8:50 pm GMT on June 24.
Swiss bank UBS has completed the merger of its domestic unit with Credit Suisse’s operations in its home market, the bank said on Monday, adding that the head of the Credit Suisse business was leaving the bank. Andre Helfenstein, CEO of Credit Suisse Switzerland, has decided to leave the bank following the merger of UBS Switzerland […]
A race is raging among global powers to secure access to critical minerals to power the simultaneous energy and digital transitions the world is experiencing. The extraordinary growth in demand for critical minerals is putting upward pressure on prices and stimulating new critical mineral discoveries all around the world. However, in developing countries, this new […]
At the end of the 19th century in Italy, books and manuscripts were transferred from monasteries to public libraries, making much of the knowledge safeguarded in monastic libraries suddenly available to the public. This column explores the link between this development and innovation. Access to knowledge through public libraries significantly increased innovation: municipalities that received […]
Policies aimed at reducing economic fluctuations primarily focus on disruptive recessions, but booms may also have hidden costs. A rise in wages increases the opportunity cost of schooling, potentially leading students to abandon school prematurely. This column examines the impact of a tax reform in Iceland that cut taxes to zero for one year and […]
The 2023 Nobel Committee awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Claudia Goldin. Among her many contributions is the emphasis on the non-monotonic trend in women’s employment over the course of US history, as the result of structural change and evolving social norms regarding women’s responsibilities for home […]
