The COVID-19 pandemic caused an uncommon recession that required uniquely large and often novel fiscal responses. Government-imposed lockdowns created severe supply bottlenecks in some sectors of the economy, and physical distancing led to dramatic changes in patterns of consumer spending. Some sectors of the economy—such as online retail—benefited, while many others—such as restaurants and travel—struggled to deal with losses of customers and the constraints of lockdowns and remote work. In reaction to this, many governments...

This paper uses Canadian matched employer-employee data to show that working hours are gross complements in production rather than perfect substitutes, as is typically assumed. We exploit within-establishment and individual-level variation in hours and wages to document novel evidence consistent with complementarities in hours worked. Next, we estimate an elasticity of substitution in working hours of 0.69 in the aggregate and between 0.52 and 1.04 at the industry level. We validate our estimates by showing...

We propose a macroeconomic model with a nonlinear Phillips curve that has a flat slope when inflationary pressures are subdued and steepens when inflationary pressures are elevated. The nonlinear Phillips curve in our model arises due to a quasi-kinked demand schedule for goods produced by firms. Our model can jointly account for the modest decline in inflation during the Great Recession and the surge in inflation post-COVID-19. Because our model implies a stronger transmission of...