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Unequal unemployment effects of COVID-19 and monetary policy across U.S. States

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  • Hakan Yilmazkuday

    (Department of Economics, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA)

Abstract

This paper shows that daily Google trends can be used as an alternative to conventional U.S. data (with alternative frequencies) on unemployment, interest rates, inflation and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This information is used to investigate the effects of COVID-19 and the corresponding monetary policy on the U.S. unemployment, both nationally and across U.S. states, by using a structural vector autoregression model. Historical decomposition analyses show that the U.S. unemployment is mostly explained by COVID-19, whereas the contribution of monetary policy is almost none. An investigation based on the U.S. states further suggests that COVID-19 and the corresponding monetary policy conducted based on nationwide economic developments have resulted in unequal changes in state-level unemployment rates, suggesting evidence for distributive effects of national monetary policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2020. "Unequal unemployment effects of COVID-19 and monetary policy across U.S. States," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 4(S3), pages 45-53, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:beh:jbepv1:v:4:y:2020:i:s3:p:45-53
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    Cited by:

    1. Richard Kofi Asravor & Frank Gyimah Sackey, 2022. "Wage Price Floors and Sectoral Employment Outcomes in Ghana," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 65(1), pages 103-122, March.
    2. Hoehn-Velasco, Lauren & Silverio-Murillo, Adan & Balmori de la Miyar, Jose Roberto, 2021. "The long downturn: The impact of the great lockdown on formal employment," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    3. Michelle Baddeley, 2020. "COVID-19 2020: A year of living dangerously," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 4(S3), pages 5-9, December.
    4. Simionescu, Mihaela & Cifuentes-Faura, Javier, 2022. "Can unemployment forecasts based on Google Trends help government design better policies? An investigation based on Spain and Portugal," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 1-21.
    5. Ariel Kalil & Susan Mayer & Rohen Shah, 2023. "Scarcity and Inattention," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 7(1), pages 35-42, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; Coronavirus; Google Trends; Monetary Policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • F66 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Labor
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

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