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Comparative Advantage in Cyclical Unemployment

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Author Info
Mark Bils
Yongsung Chang
Sun-Bin Kim

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Abstract

We introduce worker differences in labor supply, reflecting differences in skills and assets, into a model of separations, matching, and unemployment over the business cycle. Separating from employment when unemployment duration is long is particularly costly for workers with high labor supply. This provides a rich set of testable predictions across workers: those with higher labor supply, say due to lower assets, should display more procyclical wages and less countercyclical separations. Consequently, the model predicts that the pool of unemployed will sort toward workers with lower labor supply in a downturn. Because these workers generate lower rents to employers, this discourages vacancy creation and exacerbates the cyclicality of unemployment and unemployment durations. We examine wage cyclicality and employment separations over the past twenty years for workers in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Wages are much more procyclical for workers who work more. This pattern is mirrored in separations; separations from employment are much less cyclical for those who work more. We do see for recessions a strong compositional shift among those unemployed toward workers who typically work less.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13231.

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Date of creation: Jul 2007
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13231

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution
E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies
J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Leena Rudanko, 2008. "Aggregate and Idiosyncratic Risk in a Frictional Labor Market," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series wp2008-009, Boston University - Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Per Krusell & Toshihiko Mukoyama & Ayseg ul Sahin, 2007. "Labor-Market Matching with Precautionary Savings and Aggregate Fluctuations," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001783, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Moon, Weh-Sol, 2009. "Endogenous Labor Force Participation and Firing Costs," MPRA Paper 15749, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  4. Mark Bils & Yongsung Chang & Sun-Bin Kim, 2008. "Heterogeneity and Cyclical Unemployment," Discussion Paper Series 0805, Institute of Economic Research, Korea University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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