Search Results
Working Paper
The Evolution of Lifetime Hours and the Gender Wage Gap
The gender wage gap decreased (opened) from 1940 to 1975 and then increased (closed) until 2010. We use the model introduced in Ben-Porath (1967) to assess the role of gender differences in life cycle profiles of market time in explaining this dynamics. Men's profiles changed little across cohorts, but women's profiles converged to that of men implying, eventually, stronger incentives for women to accumulate human capital. We calibrate the model and find that (1) The 1940-75 decrease of the gap was because men valued human capital more than women due to their working more. The 1975-10 ...
Working Paper
The cost of fiscal policy uncertainty: industry evidence of its impact on the labor market
The anemic pace of the recovery of the U.S. economy from the Great Recession has frequently been blamed on heightened uncertainty, much of which concerns the nation's fiscal policy. Intuition suggests that increased policy uncertainty likely has different impacts on industries with different exposure to government actions. Such heterogeneity can help identify the effect of shocks due to policy uncertainty. This study uses industry data to explore whether policy uncertainty indeed affects the dynamics of employment during this recovery, and particularly whether it has a differential impact on ...
Working Paper
Dissecting Idiosyncratic Earnings Risk
This paper examines whether nonlinear and non-Gaussian features of earnings dynamics are caused by hours or hourly wages. Our findings from the Norwegian administrative and survey data are as follows: (i) Nonlinear mean reversion in earnings is driven by the dynamics of hours worked rather than wages since wage dynamics are close to linear, while hours dynamics are nonlinear—negative changes to hours are transitory, while positive changes are persistent. (ii) Large earnings changes are driven equally by hours and wages, whereas small changes are associated mainly with wage shocks. (iii) ...
Working Paper
Dissecting Idiosyncratic Earnings Risk
This paper examines whether nonlinear and non-Gaussian features of earnings dynamics are caused by hours or hourly wages. Our findings from the Norwegian administrative and survey data are as follows: (i) Nonlinear mean reversion in earnings is driven by the dynamics of hours worked rather than wages since wage dynamics are close to linear, while hours dynamics are nonlinear—negative changes to hours are transitory, while positive changes are persistent. (ii) Large earnings changes are driven equally by hours and wages, whereas small changes are associated mainly with wage shocks. (iii) ...
Working Paper
Dissecting Idiosyncratic Earnings Risk
This paper examines whether nonlinear and non-Gaussian features of earnings dynamics are caused by hours or hourly wages. Our findings from the Norwegian administrative and survey data are as follows: (i) Nonlinear mean reversion in earnings is driven by the dynamics of hours worked rather than wages since wage dynamics are close to linear, while hours dynamics are nonlinear—negative changes to hours are transitory, while positive changes are persistent. (ii) Large earnings changes are driven equally by hours and wages, whereas small changes are associated mainly with wage shocks. (iii) ...
Briefing
The impact of policy uncertainty on U. S. employment: industry evidence
The anemic pace of the recovery of the U. S. economy from the Great Recession has frequently been blamed on heightened uncertainty, much of which concerns the nation?s fiscal policy. Intuition suggests that increased policy uncertainty likely has different impacts on different industries, to the extent that industries differ in their exposure to government policies. This study utilizes industry data to explore whether policy uncertainty indeed affects the dynamics of employment, and particularly its impact on industry employment, during this recovery. This analysis focuses on heterogeneity ...
Journal Article
Shifting Hours: Unstable Work Scheduling Practices
Stable work schedules are a key component of job quality and of supporting a thriving labor force. Stable scheduling practices are associated with improved job attachment, lower turnover, and higher revenues.i On the other hand, employer-initiated unstable scheduling practices have been shown to destabilize workers’ finances, sleep, caregiving, education, other employment, and community and leisure activities, and are associated with negative health outcomes, reduced worker satisfaction, and increased turnover.ii Though unstable scheduling practices are widespread, with about 41% of all ...