The Quality-Adjusted Cyclical Price of Labor

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bils, Mark; Kudlyak, Marianna; Lins, Paulo
• 署名单位: University of Rochester; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Richmond; National Bureau of Economic Research; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - San Francisco; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); IZA Institute Labor Economics
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/726701
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: S13-S59
• 关键词: business-cycle; real wages; implicit contracts; fluctuations; volatility

摘要

We estimate cyclicality in labor's user cost allowing for cyclical fluctuations in the quality of worker-firm matches and wages that are smoothed within employment matches. To do so, we exploit a match's long-run wage to control for its quality. Using 1980-2019 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data, we identify three channels by which recessions affect user cost: they lower the new-hire wage and wages going forward in the match, but they also result in higher subsequent separations. We find that labor's user cost is highly procyclical, increasing by more than 4% for a 1 percentage point decline in unemployment.