Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy
7.3.20. Junjie Guo. In a 4-3 ruling, the Wisconsin Supreme Court invalidated the state’s Safer at Home order on May 13, 2020, allowing most non-essential businesses to open immediately in most locations. Using several real-time measures, I find broad evidence suggesting a positive impact of the Supreme Court decision on economic activity.
4.29.20. Junjie Guo. In response to the spread of COVID-19, most states in the U.S. have ordered nonessential businesses to close and residents to not leave home unless necessary. This paper estimates the impact of these stay-at-home orders on the mobility of Americans using GPS data from mobile devices
3.26.20. Junjie Guo. On March 24, 2020, at the direction of Governor Tony Evers, Wisconsin issued a “safer at home” order requiring residents not to leave their home unless necessary. Similar orders to lock down the economy in an attempt to limit the spread of COVID-19 have been issued elsewhere.
3.23.20. Junjie Guo. In its latest news release on unemployment insurance (UI) weekly claims, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) reported that, relative to the prior week, the number of initial claims increased significantly by 70,000 in the week ending on March 14, 2020.
2.21.20. Junjie Guo and Noah Williams. We evaluate the effects of the expansion in the standard deduction proposed recently in AB 910 by Wisconsin lawmakers. We find it would reduce taxes for about 2 million taxpayers and reduce state tax revenue by about $200 million, so the reduction per affected taxpayer is about $100.
1.17.20. Junjie Guo and Noah Williams. This paper provides forecasts for the United States and Wisconsin economies in 2020. We use a mixed-frequency vector auto-regression model that has been previously applied to forecast the national economy, which we extend to also consider the state of Wisconsin. Our forecasts suggest that the long economic recovery will continue in 2020.
8.19. Junjie Guo, Ananth Seshadri and Christopher Taber. Using county-level data on prison admission, prison release, parole supervision and employment opportunities by industry and skill requirements, we estimate the effect of the number of low-skill new hires by industry at the time of prison release on recidivism in Wisconsin.
6.25.19. Junjie Guo and Noah Williams. We provide new evidence on the potential impact of Medicaid expansion on health care providers and the privately insured in Wisconsin.
5.10.19. Junjie Guo and Noah Williams. Wisconsin has a progressive individual state income tax system, which features increasing marginal tax rates (the tax rate on the last dollar earned) as income rises. However other aspects of the tax code, such as the earned income tax credit (EITC) and standard deduction, change the effective marginal tax rate that taxpayers face.
11.8.19. Junjie Guo and Noah Williams. This paper provides forecasts for the United States and Wisconsin economies in 2019. We use a mixed-frequency vector auto-regression (MF-VAR) model that has been previously applied to forecast the national economy, which we extend to also consider the state of Wisconsin.