IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed018/1009.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Firm and Worker Dynamics in an Aging Labor Market

Author

Listed:
  • Niklas Engbom

    (Princeton University)

Abstract

I assess the impact of an aging labor force on business dynamism, labor market fluidity and economic growth. The analysis embeds endogenous growth through creative destruction in an equilibrium job ladder model, highlighting feedback between the extent of mismatch in the labor market and incentives to innovate. I calibrate the model to aggregate reallocation rates and show that the theory replicates life cycle firm and worker dynamics in the data. The model implies that labor force aging over the last 30 years in the US explains 40-50 percent of the decline in job and worker reallocation and has reduced annual economic growth by 0.3 percentage points. Using cross-state variation and instrumenting for the incidence of aging using lagged age shares, I find additional empirical support for the prediction of large effects of aging on dynamism and growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Niklas Engbom, 2018. "Firm and Worker Dynamics in an Aging Labor Market," 2018 Meeting Papers 1009, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed018:1009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2018/paper_1009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1982. "Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 97-109, January.
    2. Steven J. Davis & John Haltiwanger & Ron Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2007. "Volatility and Dispersion in Business Growth Rates: Publicly Traded versus Privately Held Firms," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2006, Volume 21, pages 107-180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Henry Hyatt & James Spletzer, 2013. "The recent decline in employment dynamics," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-21, December.
    4. Pierre Cahuc & Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2006. "Wage Bargaining with On-the-Job Search: Theory and Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(2), pages 323-364, March.
    5. Christopher A. Pissarides & Barbara Petrongolo, 2001. "Looking into the Black Box: A Survey of the Matching Function," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 390-431, June.
    6. John Van Reenen, 1996. "The Creation and Capture of Rents: Wages and Innovation in a Panel of U. K. Companies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 195-226.
    7. Robert E. Lucas Jr. & Benjamin Moll, 2014. "Knowledge Growth and the Allocation of Time," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(1), pages 1-51.
    8. Erik Hurst & Benjamin Wild Pugsley, 2011. "What Do Small Businesses Do?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(2 (Fall)), pages 73-142.
    9. Jeremy Lise & Jean-Marc Robin, 2017. "The Macrodynamics of Sorting between Workers and Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1104-1135, April.
    10. David H. Autor & William R. Kerr & Adriana D. Kugler, 2007. "Do Employment Protections Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States," NBER Working Papers 12860, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Thompson, Samuel B., 2011. "Simple formulas for standard errors that cluster by both firm and time," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 1-10, January.
    12. Giuseppe Moscarini & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2013. "Stochastic Search Equilibrium," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1545-1581.
    13. R. Jason Faberman & Andreas I. Mueller & Ayşegül Şahin & Giorgio Topa, 2022. "Job Search Behavior Among the Employed and Non‐Employed," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(4), pages 1743-1779, July.
    14. Jean-Baptiste Michau, 2013. "Creative Destruction with On-the-Job Search," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(4), pages 691-707, October.
    15. Thomas Sampson, 2016. "Dynamic Selection: An Idea Flows Theory of Entry, Trade, and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 315-380.
    16. John G. Fernald, 2015. "Productivity and Potential Output before, during, and after the Great Recession," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 1-51.
    17. Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2017. "On financing retirement with an aging population," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(1), pages 75-115, March.
    18. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    19. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1991. "Quality Ladders in the Theory of Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(1), pages 43-61.
    20. Claudio Michelacci & David Lopez-Salido, 2007. "Technology Shocks and Job Flows," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(4), pages 1195-1227.
    21. Michael J. Pries, 2004. "Persistence of Employment Fluctuations: A Model of Recurring Job Loss," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 193-215.
    22. David Card & Ana Rute Cardoso & Joerg Heining & Patrick Kline, 2018. "Firms and Labor Market Inequality: Evidence and Some Theory," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 13-70.
    23. Leo Kaas & Philipp Kircher, 2015. "Efficient Firm Dynamics in a Frictional Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3030-3060, October.
    24. Cameron, A. Colin & Gelbach, Jonah B. & Miller, Douglas L., 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249.
    25. Robert Shimer, 2001. "The Impact of Young Workers on the Aggregate Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(3), pages 969-1007.
    26. Joachim Hubmer, 2018. "The Job Ladder and its Implications for Earnings Risk," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 29, pages 172-194, July.
    27. Julien Prat, 2007. "The Impact of Disembodied Technological Progress on Unemployment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(1), pages 106-125, January.
    28. Christopher L. Foote, 2007. "Space and time in macroeconomic panel data: young workers and state-level unemployment revisited," Working Papers 07-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    29. Miyamoto, Hiroaki & Takahashi, Yuya, 2011. "Productivity growth, on-the-job search, and unemployment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(6), pages 666-680.
    30. Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2002. "The Dynamics of Technological Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(3), pages 737-760, August.
    31. Luttmer, Erzo G.J., 2012. "Technology diffusion and growth," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 602-622.
    32. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/dc0ckec3fcb29ms9850c12h1p is not listed on IDEAS
    33. Morris M. Kleiner & Alan B. Krueger, 2013. "Analyzing the Extent and Influence of Occupational Licensing on the Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(S1), pages 173-202.
    34. Benjamin F. Jones, 2010. "Age and Great Invention," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 1-14, February.
    35. Alex Bryson, 2014. "It's Where You Work: Increases in Earnings Dispersion across Establishments and Individuals in the U.S," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 436, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    36. Shigeru Fujita & Giuseppe Moscarini, 2017. "Recall and Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(12), pages 3875-3916, December.
    37. Raven Molloy & Christopher L. Smith & Riccardo Trezzi & Abigail Wozniak, 2016. "Understanding Declining Fluidity in the U.S. Labor Market," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(1 (Spring), pages 183-259.
    38. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119.
    39. Greg Kaplan & Sam Schulhofer‐Wohl, 2017. "Understanding The Long‐Run Decline In Interstate Migration," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58, pages 57-94, February.
    40. Nicole Maestas & Kathleen J. Mullen & David Powell, 2023. "The Effect of Population Aging on Economic Growth, the Labor Force, and Productivity," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 306-332, April.
    41. repec:iza:izawol:journl:y:2015:p:175 is not listed on IDEAS
    42. Anika K. Josef & David Richter & Gregory R. Samanez-Larkin & Gert G. Wagner & Ralph Hertwig & Rui Mata, 2016. "Stability and Change in Risk-Taking Propensity across the Adult Lifespan," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 816, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    43. Edouard Schaal, 2017. "Uncertainty and Unemployment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85(6), pages 1675-1721, November.
    44. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2gm7u1h28o97arriihp43sr90l is not listed on IDEAS
    45. Nir Jaimovich & Henry E. Siu, 2009. "The Young, the Old, and the Restless: Demographics and Business Cycle Volatility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 804-826, June.
    46. Tor Jakob Klette & Samuel Kortum, 2004. "Innovating Firms and Aggregate Innovation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 986-1018, October.
    47. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/22qd4iha9ql84kd2t534hdeb is not listed on IDEAS
    48. Benjamin Wild Pugsley & Ay’egul ahin, 2019. "Grown-up Business Cycles," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(3), pages 1102-1147.
    49. Ryan A. Decker & John Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2016. "Declining Business Dynamism: What We Know and the Way Forward," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 203-207, May.
    50. Michael W. L. Elsby & Ryan Michaels, 2013. "Marginal Jobs, Heterogeneous Firms, and Unemployment Flows," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 1-48, January.
    51. Diamond, Peter A, 1982. "Aggregate Demand Management in Search Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(5), pages 881-894, October.
    52. Dale T. Mortensen & Christopher A. Pissarides, 1998. "Technological Progress, Job Creation and Job Destruction," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(4), pages 733-753, October.
    53. Erling Barth & Alex Bryson & James C. Davis & Richard Freeman, 2016. "It's Where You Work: Increases in the Dispersion of Earnings across Establishments and Individuals in the United States," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S2), pages 67-97.
    54. Henry R. Hyatt, 2015. "The decline in job-to-job flows," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 175-175, July.
    55. Robert H. Topel & Michael P. Ward, 1992. "Job Mobility and the Careers of Young Men," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 439-479.
    56. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    57. Richard E. Caves, 1998. "Industrial Organization and New Findings on the Turnover and Mobility of Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 1947-1982, December.
    58. Jesse Perla & Christopher Tonetti, 2014. "Equilibrium Imitation and Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(1), pages 52-76.
    59. Burdett, Kenneth & Mortensen, Dale T, 1998. "Wage Differentials, Employer Size, and Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 257-273, May.
    60. Hyeok Jeong & Yong Kim & Iourii Manovskii, 2015. "The Price of Experience," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 784-815, February.
    61. John M. Abowd & Robert H. Creecy & Francis Kramarz, 2002. "Computing Person and Firm Effects Using Linked Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2002-06, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    62. Arlene Wong, 2016. "Population aging and the transmission of monetary policy to consumption," 2016 Meeting Papers 716, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    63. Steven J. Davis, 2008. "The Decline of Job Loss and Why It Matters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 263-267, May.
    64. Abowd, John M & Zellner, Arnold, 1985. "Estimating Gross Labor-Force Flows," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(3), pages 254-283, June.
    65. Poterba, James M & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "Reporting Errors and Labor Market Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(6), pages 1319-1338, November.
    66. Christopher A. Pissarides & Giovanna Vallanti, 2007. "The Impact Of Tfp Growth On Steady-State Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(2), pages 607-640, May.
    67. Nicole Maestas & Kathleen J. Mullen & David Powell, 2016. "The Effect of Population Aging on Economic Growth, the Labor Force and Productivity," NBER Working Papers 22452, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carlo Ciccarelli & Matteo Gomellini & Paolo Sestito, 2019. "Demography and Productivity in the Italian Manufacturing Industry: Yesterday and Today," CEIS Research Paper 457, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 16 May 2019.
    2. Hiroshi Inokuma & Juan M. Sánchez, 2024. "From Population Growth to TFP Growth," IMES Discussion Paper Series 24-E-09, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    3. Kali, Raja & Liu, Andrew Yizhou, 2024. "Labor market power and worker turnover," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    4. Pavlov, Alexandre & Jananji, Raphael & Tchuisseu, Feraud, 2023. "Declining Worker Turnover: The Role of Short Duration Employment Sells – A Comment on Pries and Rogerson (2022)," I4R Discussion Paper Series 93, The Institute for Replication (I4R).
    5. Hiroshi Inokuma & Juan M. Sanchez, 2023. "From Population Growth to TFP Growth," Working Papers 2023-006, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised 09 Jun 2024.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Niklas Engbom, 2019. "Firm and Worker Dynamics in an Aging Labor Market," Working Papers 756, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    2. Jean-Baptiste Michau, 2013. "Creative Destruction with On-the-Job Search," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(4), pages 691-707, October.
    3. Henry Hyatt & James Spletzer, 2013. "The recent decline in employment dynamics," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-21, December.
    4. Niklas Engbom & Christian Moser, 2022. "Earnings Inequality and the Minimum Wage: Evidence from Brazil," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(12), pages 3803-3847, December.
    5. Fujita, Shigeru, 2018. "Declining labor turnover and turbulence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 1-19.
    6. Tania Babina & Wenting Ma & Christian Moser & Paige Ouimet & Rebecca Zarutskie, 2019. "Pay, Employment, and Dynamics of Young Firms," Working Papers 19-23, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    7. Fatih Karahan & Serdar Ozkan & Jae Song, 2019. "Anatomy of Lifetime Earnings Inequality: Heterogeneity in Job Ladder Risk vs. Human Capital," Staff Reports 908, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    8. Niklas Engbom, 2019. "Application Cycles," 2019 Meeting Papers 1170, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Engbom, Niklas & Moser, Christian & Sauermann, Jan, 2023. "Firm pay dynamics," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(2), pages 396-423.
    10. Pau Roldan & Sophia Gilbukh, 2017. "Firm Dynamics and Pricing under Customer Capital Accumulation," 2017 Meeting Papers 1235, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Steven J. Davis & John Haltiwanger, 2014. "Labor Market Fluidity and Economic Performance," NBER Working Papers 20479, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Etienne Lalé, 2019. "Search and Multiple Jobholding," Upjohn Working Papers 19-305, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    13. David Card & Ana Rute Cardoso & Joerg Heining & Patrick Kline, 2018. "Firms and Labor Market Inequality: Evidence and Some Theory," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 13-70.
    14. Miyamoto Hiroaki, 2016. "Growth and non-regular employment," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 523-554, June.
    15. Simon Jäger & Benjamin Schoefer & Samuel Young & Josef Zweimüller, 2020. "Wages and the Value of Nonemployment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(4), pages 1905-1963.
    16. Philip Jung & Moritz Kuhn, 2019. "Earnings Losses and Labor Mobility Over the Life Cycle," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 678-724.
    17. Ufuk Akcigit & Salomé Baslandze & Francesca Lotti, 2023. "Connecting to Power: Political Connections, Innovation, and Firm Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(2), pages 529-564, March.
    18. Ufuk Akcigit & William Kerr, 2015. "Growth through Heterogeneous Innovation, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 15-020, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 25 Mar 2015.
    19. Morchio, Iacopo & Moser, Christian, 2018. "The Gender Pay Gap: Micro Sources and Macro Consequences," MPRA Paper 99276, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 Mar 2020.
    20. Emilien Gouin-Bonenfant, 2018. "Productivity Dispersion, Between-firm Competition and the Labor Share," 2018 Meeting Papers 1171, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:red:sed018:1009. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.