Job Search Behavior over the Business Cycle

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mukoyama, Toshihiko; Patterson, Christina; Sahin, Aysegul
• 署名单位: Georgetown University; University of Virginia; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - New York
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20160202
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 190-215
• 关键词: unemployment-insurance; cyclical behavior; equilibrium unemployment; moral hazard; VACANCIES; EMPLOYMENT; intensity; impacts

摘要

We create a novel measure of job search effort exploiting the American Time Use and Current Population Surveys. We examine the cyclicality of search effort using time-series, cross-state, and individual variation and find that it is countercyclical. We then set up a search and matching model with endogenous search effort and show that search effort does not amplify labor market fluctuations but rather dampens them. Lastly, we examine the role of search effort in driving recent unemployment dynamics and show that the unemployment rate would have been 0.5 to 1 percentage points higher in the 2008-2014 period had search effort not increased.