Digital Gems

To provide economic relief following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. CARES Act granted an extra $600 per week in unemployment insurance (UI) benefit payments from late March through July 2020. This unprecedented increase in UI generosity caused weekly benefit payments to exceed prior earnings for most recipients, raising concern that many would be unwilling to accept job offers, slowing the labor market recovery. To assess the impact of the UI supplement, we analyze the job acceptance decision in a dynamic framework in which job seekers weigh the value of a job against remaining unemployed, accounting for the perceived state of the labor market and expected weeks of UI benefits. We derive a reservation level of benefit payments at which an individual is indifferent between accepting and refusing a job offer at their prior wage. Calculating the reservation benefit and comparing it to imputed benefit payments for a wide range of U.S. workers suggests that only a small fraction would turn down an offer to return to work at their previous wage under the CARES Act expanded UI payments. We supplement this quantitative assessment of reservation benefits with direct empirical analysis of labor force transitions using matched Current Population Survey (CPS) data, linked to annual earning records from the CPS income supplement to form UI replacement rates. The results show moderate disincentive effects of the $600 supplemental payments on job finding rates and by extension small effects of the $300 weekly supplement available during 2021.

LONDON/TOKYO (Reuters) -European factories continued to ramp up their post-lockdown recovery in June but Asian manufacturers saw momentum weaken amid rising input costs and the reintroduction of curbs to combat a new wave of coronavirus infections, surveys showed. Czech and Polish manufacturing hit a record pace of activity for the second month in a row as orders rose and economies opened up again. But manufacturing activity grew at a slower pace in China and Japan as raw materials rose, while activity shrank in Vietnam, Malaysia and India, where governments imposed tougher restrictions to contain fresh coronavirus outbreaks.

Historically, bull markets rarely happen in the form of a smooth line, up and to the right.

How young people are rewriting the rules of punctuation

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. human rights chief, in a landmark report launched after the killing of George Floyd in the United States, is urging countries worldwide to do more to help end discrimination, violence and systemic racism against people of African descent and “make amends” to them — including through reparations.

New Vehicle Sales Expected to Stay Strong in the Second Quarter, According to Edmunds

Original Article from The New England Journal of Medicine — CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Editing for Sickle Cell Disease and β-Thalassemia

Some fungi are evolving to resist drugs and ammonia cleaning and sometimes even attack healthy humans.

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Blackstone Group Inc. agreed to buy Certified Collectibles Group, which grades and verifies items such as sports trading cards, stamps and coins.

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That includes, crucially, China and India.

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