IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/faulre/119.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Uncertainty shocks and employment fluctuations in Germany: The role of establishment size

Author

Listed:
  • Kovalenko, Tim

Abstract

Uncertainty shocks are found to adversely affect labor market outcomes. Most studies attribute labor adjustments costs for the propagation of macroeconomic uncertainty to the labor market. Given that large establishments in Germany face higher labor adjustments cost, they should be affected more strongly by these shocks. Therefore, this paper studies the effects of uncertainty shocks on employment adjustments in large and small establishments employing four structural vector auto-regressive models with quarterly data for Germany in the period 1991-2014. These four models estimate effects of uncertainty shocks on employment, worker flows, job flows as well as worker churn, both for establishments with less than 100 and with at least 100 employees. The results suggest that uncertainty shocks induce considerable employment fluctuations in large establishments, while they have barely an effect on small establishments. Furthermore, large establishments adjust their labor input in response to an uncertainty shock by delaying the replacement of workers who leave these establishments.

Suggested Citation

  • Kovalenko, Tim, 2021. "Uncertainty shocks and employment fluctuations in Germany: The role of establishment size," Discussion Papers 119, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:faulre:119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/240618/1/1768066515.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Bloom, 2016. "Fluctuations in uncertainty," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 4.
    2. Arellano, Cristina & Bai, Yan & Zhang, Jing, 2012. "Firm dynamics and financial development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(6), pages 533-549.
    3. Benjamin Born & Sebastian Breuer & Steffen Elstner, 2018. "Uncertainty and the Great Recession," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 80(5), pages 951-971, October.
    4. Sylvain Leduc & Zheng Liu, 2020. "The Uncertainty Channel of the Coronavirus," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 2020(07), pages 1-05, March.
    5. Mecikovsky, Ariel Matias & Meier, Matthias, 2014. "Do plants freeze upon uncertainty shocks?," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100541, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Susanto Basu & Brent Bundick, 2017. "Uncertainty Shocks in a Model of Effective Demand," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 937-958, May.
    7. Shoag, Daniel & Veuger, Stan, 2016. "Uncertainty and the geography of the great recession," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 84-93.
    8. Claudia M Buch & Manuel Buchholz & Lena Tonzer, 2015. "Uncertainty, Bank Lending, and Bank-Level Heterogeneity," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 63(4), pages 919-954, November.
    9. Elisa Guglielminetti, 2016. "The labor market channel of macroeconomic uncertainty," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1068, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    10. Nicholas Bloom & Max Floetotto & Nir Jaimovich & Itay Saporta†Eksten & Stephen J. Terry, 2018. "Really Uncertain Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(3), pages 1031-1065, May.
    11. Caldara, Dario & Fuentes-Albero, Cristina & Gilchrist, Simon & Zakrajšek, Egon, 2016. "The macroeconomic impact of financial and uncertainty shocks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 185-207.
    12. Cristina Arellano & Yan Bai & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2019. "Financial Frictions and Fluctuations in Volatility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(5), pages 2049-2103.
    13. Kyle Jurado & Sydney C. Ludvigson & Serena Ng, 2015. "Measuring Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1177-1216, March.
    14. Giovanni Angelini & Emanuele Bacchiocchi & Giovanni Caggiano & Luca Fanelli, 2019. "Uncertainty across volatility regimes," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(3), pages 437-455, April.
    15. Christian Merkl & Heiko Stüber, 2019. "Value added, wages and labour market flows at the establishment level," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2), pages 135-142, January.
    16. Caggiano, Giovanni & Castelnuovo, Efrem & Groshenny, Nicolas, 2014. "Uncertainty shocks and unemployment dynamics in U.S. recessions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 78-92.
    17. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    18. Adina Popescu & Frank Rafael Smets, 2010. "Uncertainty, Risk-taking, and the Business Cycle in Germany," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 56(4), pages 596-626, December.
    19. Schnabel Claus, 2020. "Betriebliche Mitbestimmung in Deutschland: Verbreitung, Auswirkungen und Implikationen," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 21(4), pages 361-378, December.
    20. Michael Siemer, 2019. "Employment Effects of Financial Constraints during the Great Recession," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(1), pages 16-29, March.
    21. Lutz Bellmann & Hans†Dieter Gerner & Richard Upward, 2018. "Job and Worker Turnover in German Establishments," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 86(4), pages 417-445, July.
    22. Altig, Dave & Baker, Scott & Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nicholas & Bunn, Philip & Chen, Scarlet & Davis, Steven J. & Leather, Julia & Meyer, Brent & Mihaylov, Emil & Mizen, Paul & Parker, Nicholas &, 2020. "Economic uncertainty before and during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    23. Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Pablo Guerron-Quintana, 2020. "Uncertainty Shocks and Business Cycle Research," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 118-166, August.
    24. Teresa C Fort & John Haltiwanger & Ron S Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2013. "How Firms Respond to Business Cycles: The Role of Firm Age and Firm Size," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(3), pages 520-559, August.
    25. Joris de Wind & Katarzyna Grabska, 2016. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks: Continental Europe versus the Anglo-Saxon World," CPB Discussion Paper 335.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    26. Joris de Wind & Katarzyna Grabska, 2016. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks: Continental Europe versus the Anglo-Saxon World," CPB Discussion Paper 335, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    27. Meinen, Philipp & Roehe, Oke, 2017. "On measuring uncertainty and its impact on investment: Cross-country evidence from the euro area," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 161-179.
    28. Idriss Fontaine, 2021. "Uncertainty and Labour Force Participation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(2), pages 437-471, April.
    29. Bachmann, Rüdiger & Bayer, Christian & Merkl, Christian & Seth, Stefan & Stüber, Heiko & Wellschmied, Felix, 2021. "Worker churn in the cross section and over time: New evidence from Germany," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 781-797.
    30. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    31. Edward P. Lazear & James R. Spletzer, 2012. "Hiring, Churn, and the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 575-579, May.
    32. Arnd Kölling, 2012. "Firm Size and Employment Dynamics: Estimations of Labor Demand Elasticities Using a Fractional Panel Probit Model," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 26(2), pages 174-207, June.
    33. Leo Kaas & Bihemo Kimasa, 2021. "Firm Dynamics With Frictional Product And Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1281-1317, August.
    34. Stüber, Heiko & Seth, Stefan, 2019. "The FDZ sample of the Administrative Wage and Labor Market Flow Panel 1976 - 2014," FDZ Datenreport. Documentation on Labour Market Data 201901_en, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    35. Caggiano, Giovanni & Castelnuovo, Efrem & Kima, Richard, 2020. "The global effects of Covid-19-induced uncertainty," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    36. Christian Grimme & Marc Stöckli, 2018. "Measuring Macroeconomic Uncertainty in Germany," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 19(01), pages 46-50, March.
    37. Carrière-Swallow, Yan & Céspedes, Luis Felipe, 2013. "The impact of uncertainty shocks in emerging economies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 316-325.
    38. Giuseppe Moscarini & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2012. "The Contribution of Large and Small Employers to Job Creation in Times of High and Low Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2509-2539, October.
    39. Blatter, Marc & Muehlemann, Samuel & Schenker, Samuel, 2012. "The costs of hiring skilled workers," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 20-35.
    40. Francis Kramarz & Marie-Laure Michaud, 2002. "The Shape of Hiring and Separation Costs," Working Papers 2002-38, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    41. Abowd, John M. & Kramarz, Francis, 2003. "The costs of hiring and separations," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(5), pages 499-530, October.
    42. Christian Merkl & Enzo Weber, 2020. "Raus aus der Neueinstellungskrise! [End the Recruitment Crisis!]," Wirtschaftsdienst, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 100(7), pages 507-509, July.
    43. R?diger Bachmann & Steffen Elstner & Eric R. Sims, 2013. "Uncertainty and Economic Activity: Evidence from Business Survey Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 217-249, April.
    44. Munechika Katayama & Kwang Hwan Kim, 2018. "Uncertainty Shocks and the Relative Price of Investment Goods," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 163-178, October.
    45. Claeys, Peter & Vašíček, Bořek, 2019. "Transmission of uncertainty shocks: Learning from heterogeneous responses on a panel of EU countries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 62-83.
    46. Ellguth, Peter & Kohaut, Susanne, 2019. "Tarifbindung und betriebliche Interessenvertretung: Ergebnisse aus dem IAB-Betriebspanel 2018," WSI-Mitteilungen, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 72(4), pages 290-297.
    47. Bardt, Hubertus & Grömling, Michael, 2020. "Kein schnelles Ende des Corona-Schocks: Ökonomische Einschätzungen deutscher Unternehmen [No abrupt end to the corona shock: How German companies assess the future of the economy]," IW-Trends – Vierteljahresschrift zur empirischen Wirtschaftsforschung, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) / German Economic Institute, vol. 47(2), pages 21-41.
    48. Kilian,Lutz & Lütkepohl,Helmut, 2018. "Structural Vector Autoregressive Analysis," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107196575, October.
    49. Leduc, Sylvain & Liu, Zheng, 2016. "Uncertainty shocks are aggregate demand shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 20-35.
    50. Joonseok Oh, 2020. "The Propagation Of Uncertainty Shocks: Rotemberg Versus Calvo," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1097-1113, August.
    51. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/59cr4u3mmr9pobrceptvua5g8c is not listed on IDEAS
    52. Haroon Mumtaz & Konstantinos Theodoridis, 2018. "The Changing Transmission of Uncertainty Shocks in the U.S," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 239-252, April.
    53. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2020_011 is not listed on IDEAS
    54. Giuseppe Moscarini & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2009. "The Timing of Labor Market Expansions: New Facts and a New Hypothesis," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2008, Volume 23, pages 1-51, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    55. Christian Arndt & Claudia M. Buch & Anselm Mattes, 2009. "Firm-Specific Factor Market Constraints and FDI: Evidence from Germany," Development Working Papers 269, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    56. Markus Riegler, 2014. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks on the Job-Finding Rate and Separation Rate," 2014 Papers pri337, Job Market Papers.
    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. Bucher, Florian & Scheu, Lucas & Schröpf, Benedikt, 2022. "Economic complexity and environmental pollution: Evidence from the former socialist transition countries," Discussion Papers 124, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.

    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. Tim Kovalenko, 2021. "Uncertainty shocks and employment fluctuations in Germany: the role of establishment size," Working Papers 212, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    2. Josué Diwambuena & Jean-Paul K. Tsasa, 2021. "The Real Effects of Uncertainty Shocks: New Evidence from Linear and Nonlinear SVAR Models," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS87, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    3. Carriero, Andrea & Clark, Todd E. & Marcellino, Massimiliano, 2021. "Using time-varying volatility for identification in Vector Autoregressions: An application to endogenous uncertainty," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(1), pages 47-73.
    4. Karaki, Mohamad B. & Rangaraju, Sandeep Kumar, 2023. "The confidence channel of U.S. financial uncertainty: Evidence from industry-level data," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    5. Redl, Chris, 2020. "Uncertainty matters: Evidence from close elections," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    6. Mirela Miescu, 2019. "Uncertainty shocks in emerging economies," Working Papers 277077821, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    7. Maria Elena Bontempi & Michele Frigeri & Roberto Golinelli & Matteo Squadrani, 2021. "EURQ: A New Web Search‐based Uncertainty Index," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(352), pages 969-1015, October.
    8. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2022_005 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Dibiasi, Andreas & Sarferaz, Samad, 2023. "Measuring macroeconomic uncertainty: A cross-country analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    10. Ambrocio, Gene, 2020. "Inflationary household uncertainty shocks," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 5/2020, Bank of Finland.
    11. Giovanni Pellegrino & Federico Ravenna & Gabriel Züllig, 2021. "The Impact of Pessimistic Expectations on the Effects of COVID‐19‐Induced Uncertainty in the Euro Area," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(4), pages 841-869, August.
    12. Andrea Carriero & Alessio Volpicella, 2022. "Generalizing the Max Share Identification to multiple shocks identification: an Application to Uncertainty," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0322, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    13. Ambrocio, Gene, 2020. "Inflationary household uncertainty shocks," Research Discussion Papers 5/2020, Bank of Finland.
    14. Awijen, Haithem & Ben Zaied, Younes & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Sensoy, Ahmet, 2020. "Endogenous Financial Uncertainty and Macroeconomic Volatility: Evidence from the United States," MPRA Paper 101276, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jun 2020.
    15. Idriss Fontaine, 2021. "Uncertainty and Labour Force Participation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(2), pages 437-471, April.
    16. Magnus Reif, 2020. "Macroeconomics, Nonlinearities, and the Business Cycle," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 87.
    17. Rivolta, Giulia & Trecroci, Carmine, 2020. "Measuring the effects of U.S. uncertainty and monetary conditions on EMEs' macroeconomic dynamics," MPRA Paper 99403, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Tosapol Apaitan & Pongsak Luangaram & Pym Manopimoke, 2022. "Uncertainty in an emerging market economy: evidence from Thailand," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 933-989, March.
    19. Chris Redl, 2018. "Macroeconomic Uncertainty in South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(3), pages 361-380, September.
    20. Den Haan, Wouter J. & Freund, Lukas B. & Rendahl, Pontus, 2021. "Volatile hiring: uncertainty in search and matching models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-18.
    21. Barraza, Santiago & Civelli, Andrea, 2020. "Economic policy uncertainty and the supply of business loans," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Uncertainty Shocks; Employment; Worker Flows; Job Flows; Worker Churn; Establishment Size; Structural Vector Auto-Regression; Germany;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

    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:zbw:faulre:119. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vierlde.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.