Kevin Rinz

Anybody around DC have any use for some old econ textbooks? Or know of an institution that might?

YouTube video by Trevolution Billy Trades Peña

Just sitting here listening to the Guardians game, thinking about this scene from Moneyball for no particular reason youtu.be/YwmsSAvkzGE?...

The Proliferation of Private Digital Money Don’t say you didn’t see this financial crisis coming.

The Proliferation of Private Digital Money www.briefingbook.info/p/the-prolif...

Very cool!

The hidden trade-offs of nonwage job amenities for U.S. workers Research shows that “amenity trade-offs” can account for as much as two-thirds of the gender pay gap.

Super interesting column @equitablegrowth.bsky.social by Alex Bell on how identification by anti-instruments reveals attribute tradeoffs, applied to job quality.

Got to see him present it @upjohninstitute.bsky.social recently. New & interesting.
#EconSky
equitablegrowth.org/the-hidden-t...

The Heart of the Deal Why the US-UK trade deal might make both countries poorer

The Heart of the Deal www.briefingbook.info/p/the-heart-...

For the next three years, an optimistic tariff-advocate scenario looks a lot like that 2001-style recession. That’s an important point: the transition advocates mostly want to gloss over may in fact be a recession, which research suggests would have long-term consequences.

Ugh, thanks

Tariffs pose real risks to the U.S. labor market A look at labor market data reveals how trade policy and tariffs could affect U.S. workers in the medium and longer term.

Full piece here equitablegrowth.org/tariffs-pose...

There’s so much uncertainty that it’s impossible to say which of these scenarios, if any, will ultimately come to pass. But I think being concrete about what follows from reasonable changes to labor market dynamics is helpful.

For the next three years, an optimistic tariff-advocate scenario looks a lot like that 2001-style recession. That’s an important point: the transition advocates mostly want to gloss over may in fact be a recession, which research suggests would have long-term consequences.

Don’t want to ignore advocates for aggressive tariffs who think the short-term pain associated w adjusting to them will be outweighed by the longer-term gains associated w returning production to the US, so consider an optimistic scenario: hiring not too low, layoffs not too high

But there’s no reason firms’ adjustments would have to stop at modest. Slower hiring and faster layoffs could easily spiral into a recession, even before the resolution of tariff uncertainty renders some businesses non-viable. Even a fairly mild recession could drive UR to ~6%.

Tariffs pose obvious risks. Even just the uncertainty about what they’ll be could slow hiring and/or increase layoffs. Even modest adjustments to tariffs could push the unemployment rate several tenths above baseline.

I’ve been doing quarterly labor market updates at @equitablegrowth.bsky.social once all the data come in, and now is a weird time for one. Tariffs are coming and going faster than data can be collected. What we have shows a labor market that still looks solid, comparable to 2019. But…

Why do some jobs pay better than others? Think about what workers do! We tried to start doing this in an @equitablegrowth.bsky.social piece this week. We look at how skills, abilities, and work activities from O*NET relate to wages.

Why do some jobs pay better than others? Think about what workers do. An analysis of O*NET data reveal how job content impacts wages and how the content of jobs has shifted in the past 25 years.

Read the whole thing here equitablegrowth.org/why-do-some-...

So barriers to entry could contribute to higher wages, and wages could understate degree of difference from other occs due to non-wage amenities/compensation.

3. Is anything different about occs where wages are under-predicted by job content? Yes! They’re more likely to require professional licenses, and they’re more likely to involve telework.

2. O*NET job content measures, despite being measured at the occupation level, explain about 30% of the variation in individual wages over the last 5 years, which is pretty good. But they systematically under-predicted wages within high-paying occupations.

Changes in returns to different aspects of jobs did play a role, but in offsetting ways.

I want to highlight some cool stuff in this piece:
1) we decompose the change in real wages from the ~5 yrs before the pandemic to the ~5 yrs after. Despite all the talk about the Great Resignation/Reshuffle, changes in the content of the average job didn’t play much of a role.

When they’re in the thick of it, policy people are inclined to look for policy explanations for things like wage growth or the availability of good jobs. But when you have the chance it’s good to step back and think about how economic fundamentals matter.

Why do some jobs pay better than others? Think about what workers do! We tried to start doing this in an @equitablegrowth.bsky.social piece this week. We look at how skills, abilities, and work activities from O*NET relate to wages.

Why do some jobs pay better than others? Think about what workers do. An analysis of O*NET data reveal how job content impacts wages and how the content of jobs has shifted in the past 25 years.

Read the whole thing here equitablegrowth.org/why-do-some-...

So barriers to entry could contribute to higher wages, and wages could understate degree of difference from other occs due to non-wage amenities/compensation.

3. Is anything different about occs where wages are under-predicted by job content? Yes! They’re more likely to require professional licenses, and they’re more likely to involve telework.

2. O*NET job content measures, despite being measured at the occupation level, explain about 30% of the variation in individual wages over the last 5 years, which is pretty good. But they systematically under-predicted wages within high-paying occupations.

Changes in returns to different aspects of jobs did play a role, but in offsetting ways.

I want to highlight some cool stuff in this piece:
1) we decompose the change in real wages from the ~5 yrs before the pandemic to the ~5 yrs after. Despite all the talk about the Great Resignation/Reshuffle, changes in the content of the average job didn’t play much of a role.