Search Results
Working Paper
Goods-Market Frictions and International Trade
We present a tractable framework that embeds goods-market frictions in a general equilibrium dynamic model with heterogeneous exporters and identical importers. These frictions arise because it takes time and expense for exporters and importers to meet. We show that search frictions lead to an endogenous fraction of unmatched exporters, alter the gains from trade, endogenize entry costs, and imply that the competitive equilibrium does not generally result in the socially optimal number of searching firms. Finally, ignoring search frictions results in biased estimates of the effect of tariffs ...
Working Paper
Parental Proximity and Earnings after Job Displacements
Young adults, ages 25 to 35, who live in the same neighborhoods as their parents experience stronger earnings recoveries after a job displacement than those who live farther away. This result is driven by smaller on-impact wage reductions and sharper recoveries in both hours and wages. We show that geographic mobility, different job search durations, housing transfers, and ex-ante differences between individuals are unlikely explanations. Our findings are consistent with a framework in which some individuals living near their parents face a better wage-offer distribution, though we find no ...
Working Paper
Advance Layoff Notices and Aggregate Job Loss
We collect data from Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices and establish their usefulness as an indicator of aggregate job loss. The number of workers affected by WARN notices ("WARN layoffs") leads state-level initial unemployment insurance claims, and changes in the unemployment rate and private employment. WARN layoffs move closely with aggregate layoffs from Mass Layoff Statistics and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, but are timelier and cover a longer sample. In a vector autoregression, changes in WARN layoffs lead unemployment rate changes and job ...
Working Paper
Parental Proximity and Earnings After Job Displacements
The earnings of young adults who live in the same neighborhoods as their parents completely recover after a job displacement, unlike the earnings of young adults who live farther away, which permanently decline. Nearby workers appear to benefit from help with childcare since grandmothers are less likely to be employed after their child's job displacement and since the earnings benefits are concentrated among young adults who have children. The result also suggests that parental employment networks improve earnings. Differences in job search durations, transfers of housing services, and ...
Working Paper
Job Heterogeneity and Aggregate Labor Market Fluctuations
This paper disciplines a model with search over match quality using microeconomic evidence on worker mobility patterns and wage dynamics. In addition to capturing these individual data, the model provides an explanation for aggregate labor market patterns. Poor match quality among first jobs implies large fluctuations in unemployment due to a responsive job destruction margin. Endogenous job destruction generates a burst of layoffs at the onset of a recession and, together with on-the-job search, generates a negative comovement between unemployment and vacancies. A significant job ladder, ...
Discussion Paper
Goods-Market Frictions and International Trade
The difficulty of locating and building connections with overseas buyers is a prevalent firm-level barrier to exporting. Producers and retailers must spend time and resources to find one another before they can transact.
Working Paper
Goods-Market Frictions and International Trade
We add goods-market frictions to a general equilibrium dynamic model with heterogeneous exporting producers and identical importing retailers. Our tractable framework leads to endogenously unmatched producers, which attenuate welfare responses to foreign shocks but increase the trade elasticity relative to a model without search costs. Search frictions are quantitatively important in our calibration, attenuating welfare responses to tariffs by 40 percent and increasing the trade elasticity by 50 percent. Eliminating search costs raises welfare by 1 percent and increasing them by only a few ...
Journal Article
Using Advance Layoff Notices as a Labor Market Indicator
We use advance layoff notices filed under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act as an indicator of current and imminent labor market conditions. We have constructed a database of establishment-level notices starting in 1990 by scraping state government websites, contacting state officials, and retrieving historical data. We find evidence that these notices, aggregated to the national level, lead other prominent labor market indicators, such as initial unemployment insurance claims, the change in the unemployment rate, and changes in private employment. The lead ...
Journal Article
Advance Layoff Notice Provision and the WARN Act
We find that the incidence of advance layoff notice more than doubled in the years following the passage of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. Geographic variation confirms that the act was likely responsible for this increase. We also find that state-level mini-WARN Acts that increased notification coverage had no discernible effect on the incidence of advance notice in these states. But the mini-WARN Act in New York that increased the required length of notice resulted in a commensurate increase in advance notice for affected workers.
Working Paper
Choosing a Control Group for Displaced Workers
The vast majority of studies on the earnings of displaced workers use a control group of continuously employed workers to examine the effects of initial displacements. This approach implies long-lived earnings reductions following displacement even if these effects are not persistent, overstating the losses relative to the true average treatment effect. This paper?s approach isolates the impact of an average displacement without imposing continuous employment on the control group. In a comparison of the standard and alternative approaches using PSID data, the estimated long-run earnings ...