In this paper the authors study the cyclical behavior of job loss and hiring using CPS worker flow data, adjusted for margin error and time aggregation error. The band pass filter is used to isolate cyclical components. They consider both total worker flows and transition hazard rates within a...

In a recent influential paper, Shimer uses CPS duration and gross flow data to draw two conclusions: (1) separation rates are nearly acyclic; and (2) separation rates contribute little to the variability of unemployment. In this paper the authors assert that Shimer's analysis is problematic, for...

Drawing on CPS data, the authors show that total monthly job loss and hiring among U.S. workers, as well as job loss hazard rates, are strongly countercyclical, while job finding hazard rates are strongly procyclical. They also find that total job loss and job loss hazard rates lead the business...

Many official surveys give us important information about labor markets and unemployment, as well as other statistics. However, these surveys reveal only the net gains or losses in employment over a given period. Consequently, how many gross hires and separations lie behind the net changes is...

Compared with the steep, persistent increase in unemployment that the Great Recession triggered in the United States, its effect on unemployment in Germany was surprisingly mild. While U.S. unemployment soared from 4.8 percent to 9.5 percent between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the fourth...

Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) covering 1990-2011, we document that a surprisingly large number of workers return to their previous employer after a jobless spell and experience more favorable labor market outcomes than job switchers. Over 40% of all...

Anecdotal evidence suggests that labor market conditions surrounding American workers had been worsening in recent decades, even before the severe recession in 2007-2009. However, studies by academic researchers have not found clear evidence that worker turnover has increased over time. In this...

This paper establishes robust dynamic features of the worker reallocation process in the US labor market. I use structural VARs with sign restrictions, which take the form of restricting the short-run negative relationship between vacancies and unemployment (i.e., Beveridge curve). Despite the...

This paper establishes robust dynamic features of the worker reallocation process in the U.S. labor market. The author uses structural VARs with sign restrictions, which take the form of restricting the short-run negative relationship between vacancies and unemployment (i.e., Beveridge curve)....

In aggregate U.S. data, exogenous shocks to labor productivity induce highly persistent and hump-shaped responses to both the vacancy-unemployment ratio and employment. We show that the standard version of the Mortensen-Pissarides matching model fails to replicate this dynamic pattern due to the...