Data and Code for: COVID-19 Is a Persistent Reallocation Shock

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Jose Maria Barrero, Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico; Nicholas Bloom, Stanford University; Steven J. Davis, University of Chicago. Booth School of Business; Brent H. Meyer, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Replication AEA P&P			03/18/2021 10:07:PM

Project Citation:

Barrero, Jose Maria, Bloom, Nicholas, Davis, Steven J., and Meyer, Brent H. Data and Code for: COVID-19 Is a Persistent Reallocation Shock. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2021. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2021-04-28. https://doi.org/10.3886/E134061V1

Project Description

Summary: Drawing on data from the firm-level Survey of Business Uncertainty, we present three pieces of evidence that COVID-19 is a persistent reallocation shock. First, rates of excess job and sales reallocation over 24-month periods have risen sharply since the pandemic struck, especially for sales. We compute these rates by aggregating over monthly firm-level observations that look back 12 months and ahead 12 months. Second, as of December 2020, firm-level forecasts of sales revenue growth over the next year imply a continuation of recent changes, not a reversal. Third, COVID-19 shifted relative employment growth trends in favor of industries with a high capacity of employees to work from home, and against those with a low capacity.

Funding Sources: Asociacion Mexicana de Cultura; Stanford University; University of Chicago. Booth School of Business; Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: COVID-19; reallocation shock; business expectations; working from home; Survey of Business Uncertainty

JEL Classification:
      D22 Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
      D84 Expectations; Speculations
      E23 Macroeconomics: Production
      E24 Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
      J21 Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
      J62 Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
      J63 Labor Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

Geographic Coverage: United States

Time Period(s): 9/1/2016 – 12/31/2020

Collection Date(s): 9/1/2016 – 12/31/2020 (Monthly, during the 2nd and 3rd full weeks of the month from September 2016 to December 2020)

Universe: Businesses in the United States

Data Type(s): aggregate data; other; survey data

Methodology

Response Rate: See the following paper for more details on the underlying survey data and methodology.

D. Altig, J.M.Barrero, N.Bloom et al., Surveying business uncertainty. Journal of Econometrics (2020),https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconom.2020.03.021.

Data Source: Atlanta Fed-Chicago Booth-Stanford Survey of Business Uncertainty. See website: http://frbatlanta.org/sbu

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V1 [2021-04-28]

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