Lessons For The Aggregate Labor Market From Employment And Turnover Patterns Across Workers

"Economists often analyze economies populated by identical agents due to their tractability. However, this practice leads to discrepancies between individual and aggregate level observations. Most prominently, these models overlook large differences in behavior and outcomes across workers. This dissertation fills this gap by examining the implications of individual employment and turnover patterns for the aggregate labor market. The first chapter of this dissertation analyzes turnover differences across workers over the business cycle and their implications for overall job duration. Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of The Youth (NLSY) 1979-2006 suggests that average (overall) job duration is pro-cyclical, once controlling for worker composition. At the exit margin, jobs ending in recessions are of systematically shorter duration than jobs ending in booms. This result however is driven by high turnover workers who disproportionately account for exits in a recession. At the entry margin, jobs starting in recessions are expected to be of shorter duration. This result is not compositional. Recessions tend to increase the likelihood of any new job ending even when accounting for worker heterogeneity. The second chapter of this dissertation explores the implications of individual labor supply heterogeneity for the aggregate labor supply elasticity. It presents a heterogeneous agent economy with indivisible labor where agents differ in their disutility of labor and market skills. The model is estimated via indirect inference using observations on average employment and wage rates across individuals in the NLSY. The elasticity of aggregate employment in the model is 0.71, which is low compared to the literature. The results suggest that the previous literature generates large aggregate labor supply elasticities by ignoring individual labor supply differences. The third chapter is a natural extension of the second. It addresses what are the resulting aggregate employment fluctuations in an economy where agents differ in their labor supply. The results of this chapter suggest that allowing for individual labor supply heterogeneity has profound cyclical effects. The model predicts that aggregate employment fluctuations are small because individuals with very inelastic labor supply contribute disproportionately to overall employment over the business cycle"--Leaves v-vi.

Law and Employment analyzes the effects of regulation and deregulation on Latin American labor markets and presents empirically grounded studies of the costs of regulation. Numerous labor regulations that were introduced or reformed in Latin America in the past thirty years have had important economic consequences. Nobel Prize-winning economist James J. Heckman and Carmen Pagés document the behavior of firms attempting to stay in business and be competitive while facing the high costs of complying with these labor laws. They challenge the prevailing view that labor market regulations affect only the distribution of labor incomes and have little or no impact on efficiency or the performance of labor markets. Using new micro-evidence, this volume shows that labor regulations reduce labor market turnover rates and flexibility, promote inequality, and discriminate against marginal workers. Along with in-depth studies of Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Jamaica, and Trinidad, Law and Employment provides comparative analysis of Latin American economies against a range of European countries and the United States. The book breaks new ground by quantifying not only the cost of regulation in Latin America, the Caribbean, and in the OECD, but also the broader impact of this regulation.

Skilled technical occupationsâ€"defined as occupations that require a high level of knowledge in a technical domain but do not require a bachelor's degree for entryâ€"are a key component of the U.S. economy. In response to globalization and advances in science and technology, American firms are demanding workers with greater proficiency in literacy and numeracy, as well as strong interpersonal, technical, and problem-solving skills. However, employer surveys and industry and government reports have raised concerns that the nation may not have an adequate supply of skilled technical workers to achieve its competitiveness and economic growth objectives. In response to the broader need for policy information and advice, Building America's Skilled Technical Workforce examines the coverage, effectiveness, flexibility, and coordination of the policies and various programs that prepare Americans for skilled technical jobs. This report provides action-oriented recommendations for improving the American system of technical education, training, and certification.

While most standard economic models of international trade assume full employment, Carl Davidson and Steven Matusz have argued over the past two decades that this reliance on full-employment modeling is misleading and ill-equipped to tackle many important trade-related questions. This book brings together the authors' pioneering work in creating models that more accurately reflect the real-world connections between international trade and labor markets. The material collected here presents the theoretical and empirical foundations of equilibrium unemployment modeling, which the authors and their collaborators developed to give researchers and policymakers a more realistic picture of how international trade affects labor markets, and of how transnational differences in labor markets affect international trade. They address the shortcomings of standard models, describe the empirics that underlie equilibrium unemployment models, and illustrate how these new models can yield vital insights into the relationship between international trade and employment. This volume also includes an indispensable general introduction as well as concise section introductions that put the authors' work in context and reveal the thinking behind their ideas. Economists are only now realizing just how important these ideas are, making this book essential reading for researchers and students.

USA. Directory, research and development in labour market, vocational training, employment, etc., 1963 to 1978.

Much of the received wisdom about the world of work emphasizes the marketization of the employment relationship; the decline of class-based forms of inequality, and the individualization of employment relations. Non-standard forms of employment, the delayering of organizational hierarchies, and the use of individual performance-based payment systems are all held up as examples of a new neo-liberal order in which employers and employees no longer feel a sense of obligation to each other. Drawing on a range of employee and employer surveys, including the authors own Working in Britain 2000 survey, this ambitious study presents a comprehensive examination of the conditions, attitudes, and experiences of British employees from the mid-1980s to the early years of this century. The authors' analyses provides a compelling critique of the received wisdom, while also providing an original, alternative account of recent developments in work and labour markets. Along the way, the book covers such topical issues as the changing nature of trade union membership, the consequences of Britain's 'long hours' culture', and the apparent inability of women to ask for pay rises. Significantly, the authors seek to reposition debates about the future of work by restoring the concepts of contracts and social class to the analysis of the employment relationship. Based on the ESRC funded Future of Work research programme this book is destined to shape our understanding of employment in Britain for the foreseeable future.

The OECD Employment Outlook provides an annual assessment of labour market developments and prospects in Member countries. Each issue contains an overall analysis of the latest market trends and short-term forecasts, and examines key labour market developments. Reference statistics are included.