Business EconomicsPub Date : 2022-01-01Epub Date: 2022-01-20DOI: 10.1057/s11369-021-00246-z
Michael Horrigan, Misty Heggeness, Kate Bahn, Michael R Strain
{"title":"Is there a labor shortage?","authors":"Michael Horrigan, Misty Heggeness, Kate Bahn, Michael R Strain","doi":"10.1057/s11369-021-00246-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s11369-021-00246-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A panel discusses ongoing and prospective developments in the US labor market. Michael Horrigan points out that job losses in the COVID recession were heavily concentrated among women, minorities, and less-educated workers. In turn, these groups have shown less progress regaining jobs, and many have left the labor force. Horrigan shows that the industry connection between vacancies and wage increases is not at all tight, suggesting that traditional explanations that labor shortages are a matter of wages not clearing the market needs to be modified. Misty Heggeness notes that much of the weakness in women's recent labor force participation has been by working mothers, but that their behavior has not been radically different than in the past. Policies that address the concerns of working mothers could lessen the possibility of swings like those recently seen. Kate Bahn expands to discuss more specific such policies, including paid leave, paid sick leave, more predictable work schedules, greater income support, as well as a revival of unions, as means to not only alleviate hardship, but also to increase labor market efficiency. Michael Strain contends that federal policy greatly enhanced consumer demand, but the income support programs, along with other problems, have restricted supply, leading to some of the distortions observed in the labor market. While he supports some of the policies proposed by other panelists, he is leery about the effects of specific government programs that have been offered.</p>","PeriodicalId":38817,"journal":{"name":"Business Economics","volume":"57 1","pages":"6-22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8769793/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39946140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Business EconomicsPub Date : 2022-01-01Epub Date: 2022-06-11DOI: 10.1057/s11369-022-00267-2
John O'Trakoun
{"title":"Business forecasting during the pandemic.","authors":"John O'Trakoun","doi":"10.1057/s11369-022-00267-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s11369-022-00267-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The COVID-19 pandemic shock represents a once-in-a-generation challenge to both the global economy and to business forecasting, contributing to elevated economic uncertainty through today. In this article, we perform a retrospective evaluation of some of the workhorse statistical models used by business economists to see which approaches were most resilient during the pandemic shock. We find projection-based approaches were more resilient to the pandemic shock than iteration-based forecasts in the cases we studied. We also find that the pandemic induced significant variation in forecast accuracy among the models which incorporate macroeconomic data. Incorporating alternative high-frequency data which gained currency during the pandemic into these models did not necessarily improve forecast performance, however more research is needed to assess the extent to which these indicators improved business planning.</p>","PeriodicalId":38817,"journal":{"name":"Business Economics","volume":"57 3","pages":"95-110"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9188014/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40164044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Business EconomicsPub Date : 2022-01-01Epub Date: 2022-01-31DOI: 10.1057/s11369-022-00252-9
Manuel Balmaseda
{"title":"The multiple hats of a Global Business Economist.","authors":"Manuel Balmaseda","doi":"10.1057/s11369-022-00252-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s11369-022-00252-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A Global Business Economist should look at the world as it is, not as it ought to be. We need to be mind-readers, anticipating questions to come and pre-emptively searching for answers. Global interactions are making economic analysis increasingly complex. We must incorporate these linkages into the analysis, enriching the models and the story with global flavour and supplementing both with on-the-field expert assessment. Our most valuable asset is our independence and credibility, so we must tell it just how it is. Finally, communication is key. It is paramount to make the story and our deliberations easy to understand, regardless of the complexity of the analysis.</p>","PeriodicalId":38817,"journal":{"name":"Business Economics","volume":"57 1","pages":"2-5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8801556/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39893328","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Robert E. Gallman and Paul W. Rhode: Capital in the Nineteenth Century","authors":"A. Field","doi":"10.1057/s11369-021-00247-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s11369-021-00247-y","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38817,"journal":{"name":"Business Economics","volume":"57 1","pages":"81 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44909868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stephen E. Koonin: unsettled: what climate science tells us, what it doesn’t, and why it matters","authors":"D. Levine","doi":"10.1057/S11369-021-00239-Y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/S11369-021-00239-Y","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38817,"journal":{"name":"Business Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-4"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42728036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Daniel Yergin: The new map: energy, climate, and the clash of nations","authors":"T. Mullaly","doi":"10.1057/s11369-021-00235-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s11369-021-00235-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38817,"journal":{"name":"Business Economics","volume":"57 1","pages":"25 - 26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"58471899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction to: From the Editor","authors":"C. Steindel","doi":"10.1057/S11369-021-00233-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/S11369-021-00233-4","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38817,"journal":{"name":"Business Economics","volume":"56 1","pages":"117 - 117"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47423653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}