Contact Information
Department of Economics
Northwestern University
2211 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
Phone: 612-229-3692
janeolmsteadrumsey2015@u.northwestern.edu
Personal website: https://sites.google.com/view/janeolmsteadrumsey
Education
Ph.D., Economics, Northwestern University, 2021 (expected)
MA, Economics, Northwestern University
BA, Economics and International Affairs, George Washington University, 2013
Primary Fields of Specialization
Macroeconomics
Secondary Fields of Specialization
Firm dynamics, labor markets, growth
Curriculum Vitae
Job Market Paper
Market Concentration and the Productivity Slowdown, November 2020
Download Job Market Paper (PDF)
Since around 2000, U.S. aggregate productivity growth has slowed and product market concentration has risen. I construct a measure of innovativeness based on patent data that is comparable across firms and over time and show that small firms make more incremental innovations in the 2000s compared to the 1990s. To understand the implications of this fact for firm dynamics and growth, I develop an endogenous growth model where the quality of new ideas is heterogeneous across firms. I use a quantitative version of the model to infer changes to the structure of the U.S. economy between the 1990s and the 2000s. This analysis suggests that declining innovativeness of market laggards can account for about 40 percent of the rise in market concentration over this period and the entire productivity slowdown. Strategic changes in firms’ R&D investment policies in response to the decreased likelihood of laggards making drastic improvements amplify the productivity slowdown.
Other Research Papers
This Time It’s Different: The Role of Women’s Employment in a Pandemic Recession, with Titan Alon, Matthias Doepke, and Michèle Tertilt, NBER working paper 27660, August 2020
In recent US recessions, employment losses have been much larger for men than for women. In the current recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic the opposite is true: unemployment is higher among women. In this paper, we analyze the causes and consequences of this phenomenon. We argue that women experience sharp employment losses in part because women’s employment is concentrated in heavily affected sectors such as restaurants, but also because increased childcare needs due to school and daycare closures prevent many women from working. We analyze the repercussions of these facts using a quantitative macroeconomic model featuring heterogeneity in gender, marital status, childcare needs, and human capital. Our quantitative analysis suggests that a pandemic recession will i) feature a strong transmission from employment to aggregate demand due to diminished within-household insurance; ii) result in a widening of the gender wage gap throughout the recovery; iii) contribute to a weakening of gender norms that currently lead to a lopsided distribution of the division of labor in home work and child care.
Sector-Specific Shocks and the Expenditure Elasticity Channel During the COVID-19 Crisis, with Ana Danieli, May 2020
In recent US recessions, employment losses have been much larger for men than for women. In the current recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic the opposite is true: unemployment is higher among women. In this paper, we analyze the causes and consequences of this phenomenon. We argue that women experience sharp employment losses in part because women’s employment is concentrated in heavily affected sectors such as restaurants, but also because increased childcare needs due to school and daycare closures prevent many women from working. We analyze the repercussions of these facts using a quantitative macroeconomic model featuring heterogeneity in gender, marital status, childcare needs, and human capital. Our quantitative analysis suggests that a pandemic recession will i) feature a strong transmission from employment to aggregate demand due to diminished within-household insurance; ii) result in a widening of the gender wage gap throughout the recovery; iii) contribute to a weakening of gender norms that currently lead to a lopsided distribution of the division of labor in home work and child care.
Country Banks and the Panic of 1825, May 2019
The Panic of 1825 was one of the world’s first international financial crises. In this paper, I document how this crisis spread from London banks to England’s real economy. England’s correspondent banking network propagated trouble in sovereign debt markets to small banks outside of London and ultimately to non-financial firms. Using exogenous variation in town-level exposure to the crisis, I show that bank failures led to a substantial number of bankruptcies among non-financial firms, particularly in non-tradable sectors. These findings highlight the costs of a disruption to the payment system: country bank notes were the primary means of payment during the first industrial revolution.
Publications
The Impact of Covid-19 on Gender Equality, with Titan Alon, Matthias Doepke, and Michèle Tertilt, Covid Economics Vetted and Real-Time Papers, April 2020
How Effective Are Macroprudential Policies? An Empirical Investigation, with Ozge Akinci, Journal of Financial Intermediation vol. 33, January 2018
References
Prof. Matthias Doepke (Committee Chair)
Prof. Guido Lorenzoni
Prof. David Berger