Heterogeneous Passthrough from TFP to Wages
We estimate how firms' productivity shocks pass through to hourly wages, finding an average passthrough of 0.08 that is twice as large for negative shocks, consistent with labor market power.
Feb 3, 2026
Why Are the Wealthiest So Wealthy?
We decompose the excess wealth of the top 0.1% into saving rates, inheritances, returns, and labor income using Norwegian administrative data, revealing distinct "New Money" and "Old Money" dynamics.
Dec 23, 2025
Characterizing Income Risk in Chile and the Role of Labor Market Flows
We characterize Chilean income dynamics using 21 years of administrative data, finding declining inequality but rising volatility and negative skewness driven by within-job and between-employer earnings fluctuations.
Nov 1, 2025
Are Minimum Wages and Income Taxes Complements or Substitutes in Addressing Rising Skill Premia?
We study the interaction between minimum wages and income taxes during rising wage inequality and show that their correlation is tied to skill premia, rationalized by a model with private productivity information.
Aug 28, 2025
Skewed Business Cycles
We show that the skewness of firm-level growth rates is robustly procyclical across the U.S. and 52 countries, and argue that recessions combine negative mean, positive uncertainty, and negative skewness shocks.
Jun 11, 2025
Scalable versus Productive Technologies
We disentangle returns to scale from TFP across firms and show that larger firms operate more scalable—but not necessarily more productive—technologies, amplifying efficiency losses from financial frictions.
May 6, 2025
Evaluating the Great Micro Moderation
We show that U.S. worker income volatility has been stable or declining since the 1950s—contradicting survey-based beliefs—and link this trend to declining firm-side volatility.
Oct 25, 2023
Wage Setting and Passthrough: The Role of Market Power, Production Technology, and Adjustment Costs
We develop a framework for how firm productivity impacts wages under imperfect competition, finding that labor market power and adjustment costs reduce passthrough and lower wage volatility by 77%.
Aug 17, 2023
Earnings Dynamics and Its Intergenerational Transmission: Evidence from Norway
We characterize Norwegian earnings dynamics and their intergenerational transmission, showing that children of high-income fathers face more volatile but positively skewed income paths, while children of poorer fathers face higher downside risk.
Feb 28, 2022
Technical Change and Entrepreneurship
I argue that skill-biased technical change and falling capital prices explain three-quarters of the decline in U.S. entrepreneurship by raising the returns to high-skill wage employment.
Jul 29, 2020