We study how idiosyncratic earnings risk evolves over the business cycle in Italy and in the US. We distinguish between two sources of risk to annual earnings growth: changes in employment time (number of weeks of employment within a year) and changes in weekly earnings. Shocks to employment...

This paper examines how job quality varies over the cycle. Empirical evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) suggests match quality is procyclical. This interpretation is corroborated in a calibrated model with on-the-job search. In the model, more high quality matches are...

The cyclical behavior of hours of work, wages, and consumption does not conform with the prediction of the representative agent with standard preferences. The residual in the intra-temporal first-order condition for commodity consumption and leisure is often viewed as a failure of labor-market...

The number of workers who hold more than one job (a.k.a. multiple jobholders) has increased spectacularly in Canada since the mid-1970s – it has been multiplied by almost three. In this paper, we document this historical change and provide a comprehensive account of its dynamics. To this end,...

In times of economic crisis, many employers in liberal labor markets reduce their employees' working hours, which leads to an increase in the incidence of involuntary part-time work. We analyze the effectiveness of working time regulation in preventing such an increase during downswings. For...