Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Employment And Training Policy In The United States During The Economic Crisis, Christopher J. O'Leary, Randall W. Eberts

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper examines labor market conditions and public employment policies in the United States during what some are calling the Great Recession. We document the dramatic labor market changes that rapidly unfolded when the rate of gross domestic product growth turned negative, from the end of 2007 through early 2009. The paper reviews the resulting stress on labor market support programs and the broad federal response. That response came through modifications to existing programs and the introduction of new mechanisms to help Americans cope with job loss and protracted unemployment. The particular focus is on federally supported public programs for …

U.S. Training And Re-Training Programs In The Economic Crisis, Randall W. Eberts

Periodical Articles

No abstract provided.

Efficient Labor Force Participation With Search And Bargaining, Bryan Engelhardt, David L. Fuller

Economics Department Working Papers

A fixed wage is inefficient in a standard search model when workers endogenously separate from employment. We derive an efficient employment contract that involves agents paying a hiring fee (or bond) upon the formation of a match. We estimate the fixed wage and efficient contract assuming the hiring fee is unobservable, and find evidence to reject the efficient contract in favor of the fixed wage rule. A counterfactual experiment reveals the current level of labor force participation to be 9% below the efficient level, and a structural shift to the efficient contract improves welfare by nearly 4%.

The Great Macroeconomic Experiment: Assessing The Effects Of Fiscal Stimulus Spending On Employment Growth, Robert Baumann, Bryan Engelhardt, Victor Matheson

Economics Department Working Papers

As the economics profession is split over the expected impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, we analyze the effects as if it were an experiment. Specifically, we analyze the effects of spending on employment using a difference-in-difference approach by state. To date, we find spending has had no significant effect on employment.

Does Unemployment Decrease Cancer Mortality?, Benjamin Torres Galick

Economics Honors Projects

Recent research indicates that healthier lifestyles during recessions decrease the most common U.S. mortalities, but not cancer. However, they combine specific cancer mortalities with different progressions into one, possibly obscuring cancer’s link to unemployment. This paper estimates a fixed-effects regression model on unemployment and the nine most prevalent cancers between 1988 and 2002 using state-level panel data. Five cancers and total cancer are procyclical, and suggest that unemployment affects both incidence and gestation for some cancers. Consistent with the medical literature, this paper contradicts previous economic research and suggests that behavioral factors significantly impact cancer mortality.

The Obama's Administration Likely Changes In U.S. Employment Policy, Randall W. Eberts

Periodical Articles

No abstract provided.

From The Crisis Of Distribution To The Distribution Of The Costs Of The Crisis: What Can We Learn From Previous Crises About The Effects Of The Financial Crisis On Labor Share?, Özlem Onaran

PERI Working Papers

The paper analyzes the possible distributional consequences of the global crisis based on the lessons of the past crises experiences. The decline in the labor share across the globe has been a major factor that led to the current global crisis. What we are going through is a crisis of distribution, and similarly the policy reactions to the crisis are part of a distributional struggle. The paper presents the effects of the former crises in the developing countries and in Japan on income distribution, wages, and unemployment. This comparison is important not only because it compares developing vs. developed country …

How Do Firms Interpret A Job Loss? Evidence From The National Longitudinal Survey Of Youth, Stephen M. Kosovich

Faculty Publications

Empirical studies in the job displacement literature have found that workers face significant earnings losses on average, when they are permanently displaced from jobs. Previous research also suggests that the costliness of job loss varies widely. Gibbons and Katz (1991) develop and test a theoretical model in which layoffs provide the market with information concerning the quality of laid off workers, while plant and firm closings do not. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this paper tests a model that describes how firms can use additional information about job losses to determine worker quality. The results suggest …

Regional Unemployment Dynamics In Poland. A Convergence Approach, Joanna Tyrowicz, Piotr Wojcik

Joanna Tyrowicz

In this paper we approach the regional unemployment dynamics in Poland. Using policy relevant NUTS4 level data for 1999 till 2006 we employ tools typically applied to income convergence analyses to inquire the patterns of unemployment distribution. We apply diverse analytical techniques to seek traces of convergence, including beta and sigma convergence as well as pass-through analysis.

We demonstrate that it is highly stable over time, while only weak "convergence of clubs" is supported by the data and only for the high unemployment regions. Results suggest no support in favour of beta-type convergence, i.e. convergence of levels. Even controlling for …

Nonlinear Stochastic Convergence Analysis Of Regional Unemployment Rates In Poland, Joanna Tyrowicz, Piotr Wojcik

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper analyzes convergence of unemployment rates in Poland at NUTS4 level by testing nonlinear convergence, applying the modified KSS-CHLL for each pair of territorial units. The results suggest that actually the convergence is a rare phenomenon and occurs only in 1916 cases out of potential over 70 000 combinations. This paper inquires what systematic reasons contribute to this phenomenon.

There are some circumstances under which unemployment convergence should be more awaited than in the others. These include sharing a higher level territorial authority, experiencing similar labour market hardship or sharing the same structural characteristics. For each of these three …

Women, The Recession, And The Impending Economic Recovery, Jennifer W. Keil

School of Business All Faculty Scholarship

Would female investment bankers, mortgage lenders, and chief executive officers have taken the same risks given the same expected returns? Maybe not. The purpose of this article is to explore the impact of the U.S. recession on women and to help readers gain useful knowledge about women’s role in the economy.

Stubborn Unemployment And Employment Vulnerability In The Midst Of Economic Growth: The Philippine Case, Emily Christi A. Cabegin, Lawrence B. Dacuycuy, Michael M. Alba

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

The Philippines was ushered into the new millennium with an economic expansion associated with domestic labor market conditions, unlike those of the last decade of the twentieth century. Characterized by a worsening, even-though-already-high, open unemployment rate and underemployment and a persistently pervasive vulnerable employment, the economy provided a bleak picture for workers in marked contrast to the more inclusive nature of the growth episode in the 1990s (before the Asian financial crisis).

Essays On The Macroeconomics Of Labor Markets, Arindam Mandal

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation is a collection of three essays on the theoretical and the empirical aspects of the labor search theory.

Spillovers Across Labor Markets In Search Models: Effects Of "Animal Spirits" And Offshoring, Devashish Mitra, Priya Ranjan

Priya Ranjan

We study the effects of additional distortions or shocks, such as a fair-wage constraint and/or the possibility of offshoring unskilled jobs, in a two-factor general equilibrium model of unemployment with search frictions. While the direct point of impact of such shocks is on unskilled workers, we also find interesting indirect spillover effects on skilled workers. A binding fair-wage constraint increases the unskilled unemployment rate and can at the same time lead to a higher unemployment rate and a lower wage for skilled workers, as compared to an equilibrium where fairness considerations are absent or non-binding. Introducing offshoring of unskilled jobs …

Offshoring And Unemployment:The Role Of Search Frictions And Labor Mobility, Devashish Mitra, Priya Ranjan

Priya Ranjan

In a two-sector, general-equilibrium model with labor-market search frictions, we find that wage increases and sectoral unemployment decreases upon offshoring in the presence of perfect intersectoral labor mobility. If, as a result, labor moves to the sector with the lower (or equal) vacancy costs, there is an unambiguous decrease in economywide unemployment. With imperfect intersectoral labor mobility, unemployment in the offshoring sector can rise, with an unambiguous unemployment reduction in the non-offshoring sector. Imperfect labor mobility can result in a mixed equilbrium in which only some firms in the industry offshore, with unemployment in this sector rising.