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Discordant city employment cycles

Author

Listed:
  • Michael T. Owyang
  • Jeremy M. Piger
  • Howard J. Wall

Abstract

The national economy is often described as having a business cycle over which aggregate output enters and exits distinct expansion and recession phases. Analogously, national employment cycles in and out of its own expansion and contraction phases, which are closely related to the business cycle. This paper estimates city-level employment cycles for 58 large U.S. cities and documents the substantial cross-city variation in the timing, lengths, and frequencies of their employment contractions. It also shows how the spread of city-level contractions associated with U.S. recessions has tended to follow recession-specific geographic patterns. In addition, cities within the same state or region have tended to have similar employment cycles. There is no evidence, however, that similarities in employment cycles are related to similarities in industry mix. This suggests that the U.S. employment and business cycles has a spatial dimension that is independent of broad industry-level fluctuations.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael T. Owyang & Jeremy M. Piger & Howard J. Wall, 2010. "Discordant city employment cycles," Working Papers 2010-019, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2010-019
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Wall, Howard, 2023. "The Great, Greater, and Greatest Recessions of US States," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 53(1), January.
    4. Wall, Howard J., 2013. "The employment cycles of neighboring cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 177-185.
    5. Dalibor Stevanovic & Stéphane Surprenant & Rachidi Kotchoni, 2019. "Identification des points de retournement du cycle économique au Canada," CIRANO Project Reports 2019rp-05, CIRANO.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Employment (Economic theory); Business cycles;

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

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