Tepper School Professor To Study Labor Market Effects of Stimulus Payments

Matthew Denes(opens in new window), an assistant professor of finance at the Tepper School of Business(opens in new window) at Carnegie Mellon University, has received a grant from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth(opens in new window) to investigate the effectiveness of the fiscal response to the COVID-19 recession.

He is among a new cohort of researchers who will be analyzing whether policies worked, including better and more equitable outcomes for working-age individuals in the United States.

“It is vital to study the impact of policies during times of economic disruptions. This can inform us about their effects as the pandemic unfolded and support decisions in future crises. By measuring the effectiveness of the fiscal response to COVID-19, we will provide evidence using the best data available about what works and what doesn’t for policymaking,” Denes said.  

Collaborating with Spyridon Lagaras of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Margarita Tsoutsoura at Washington University in St. Louis, Denes will study the economic impact payments in the CARES Act(opens in new window). The researchers will examine the labor market effects of these stimulus payments, including salaried employment, contract jobs, unemployment and entrepreneurship.

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth’s goal is to provide policymakers with a better understanding of how specific economic policies affected the U.S. economy and workers amid the worst phases of the pandemic recession. They are particularly interested in labor force participation, wages, job matches and job quality, small business reopenings, and firms’ survival and productivity.

Denes’ research focuses on empirical corporate finance and its intersection with entrepreneurship, venture capital and political economy. His work has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Finance and the Review of Financial Studies.