Search Results
Working Paper
Recall and unemployment
Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) covering 1990-2011, we document that a surprisingly large number of workers return to their previous employer after a jobless spell and experience more favorable labor market outcomes than job switchers. Over 40% of all workers separating into unemployment regain employment at their previous employer; over a fifth of them are permanently separated workers who did not have any expectation of recall, unlike those on temporary layoff. Recalls are associated with much shorter unemployment duration and better wage changes. ...
Working Paper
The cyclicality of job loss and hiring
In this paper the authors study the cyclical behavior of job loss and hiring using CPS worker flow data, adjusted for margin error and time aggregation error. The band pass filter is used to isolate cyclical components. They consider both total worker flows and transition hazard rates within a unified framework. Our results provide overwhelming support for a "separation-driven" view of employment adjustment, whereby total job loss and hiring rise sharply during economic downturns, initiated by increases in the job loss hazard rate. Worker flows and transition hazard rates are highly ...
Working Paper
Effects of extended unemployment insurance benefits: evidence from the monthly CPS
This paper attempts to quantify the effects of extended unemployment insurance benefits in recent years. Using the monthly Current Population Survey, I estimate unemployment-to-employment (UE) hazard function and unemployment-to-inactivity (UN) hazard function for male workers. The estimated hazard functions for the period of 2004-2007, during which no extended benefits were available, exhibit patterns consistent with the expiration of regular benefits at 26 weeks. These patterns largely disappear from the hazard functions for the period of 2009-2010, during which largescale extended benefits ...
Working Paper
The cyclicality of worker flows: new evidence from the SIPP
Drawing on CPS data, the authors show that total monthly job loss and hiring among U.S. workers, as well as job loss hazard rates, are strongly countercyclical, while job finding hazard rates are strongly procyclical. They also find that total job loss and job loss hazard rates lead the business cycle, while total hiring and job finding rates trail the cycle. In the current paper the authors use information from the Survey on Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to reevaluate these findings. SIPP data are used to construct new longitudinally consistent gross flow series for U.S. workers, ...
Journal Article
What do worker flows tell us about cyclical fluctuations in employment?
Many official surveys give us important information about labor markets and unemployment, as well as other statistics. However, these surveys reveal only the net gains or losses in employment over a given period. Consequently, how many gross hires and separations lie behind the net changes is missing from these statistical releases. Data on gross flows turn up additional valuable information. In ?What Do Worker Flows Tell Us About Cyclical Fluctuations in Employment?,? Shigeru Fujita uses such data to examine cyclical changes in the pace of the worker reallocation process and its effects on ...
Working Paper
DECLINING TRENDS IN THE REAL INTEREST RATE AND INFLATION: THE ROLE OF AGING
This paper explores a causal link between aging of the labor force and declining trends in the real interest rate and inflation in Japan. We develop a New Keynesian search/matching model that features heterogeneities in age and firm-specific skills. Using the model, we examine the long-run implications of the sharp drop in labor force entry in the 1970s. We show that the changes in the demographic structure induce significant low-frequency movements in per-capita consumption growth and the real interest rate. They also lead to similar movements in the inflation rate when the monetary policy ...
Journal Article
On the causes of declines in the labor force participation rate
The unemployment rate stood at 5.0 percent when the Great Recession started in December 2007 but had more than doubled toward the end of 2009, peaking at 10 percent. Since then, however, it has steadily declined. As of the end of 2013, the jobless rate stood at 6.7 percent. While it is still high by historical standards, significant progress has been made. Moreover, the declines were often faster than many had predicted.
Briefing
Reopening the Economy: What Are the Risks, and What Have States Done?
The process of reopening economies battered by the COVID-19 pandemic has been the subject of considerable deliberation in recent months. It is generally agreed that accurate and timely monitoring of the pace of coronavirus spread is of the utmost importance in managing reopening. In addition, the discussion of reopening has often been framed by an assess-ment of the health risks posed by each economic sector. Some sectors, for example, involve especially close and protracted interaction among customers and employees, which can facilitate COVID-19 transmission. Accordingly, the sequence ...
Journal Article
Where Is Everybody? The Shrinking Labor Force Participation Rate
More Americans are neither working nor looking for work. What is going on?
Working Paper
Do Phillips curves conditionally help to forecast inflation?
This paper reexamines the forecasting ability of Phillips curves from both an unconditional and conditional perspective by applying the method developed by Giacomini and White (2006). We find that forecasts from our Phillips curve models tend to be unconditionally inferior to those from our univariate forecasting models. We also find, however, that conditioning on the state of the economy sometimes does improve the performance of the Phillips curve model in a statistically significant manner. When we do find improvement, it is asymmetric -- Phillips curve forecasts tend to be more accurate ...