Labor market flows in the cross section and over time

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Many theoretical models of labor market search imply a tight link between worker flows (hires and separations) and job gains and losses at the employer level. We use rich establishment-level data to assess several theoretical models and to study the relationship between worker flows and jobs flows. Hires, quits, and layoffs exhibit strong, highly nonlinear relationships to employer growth rates in the cross section. Simple statistical models of these relationships greatly improve our ability to account for fluctuations in aggregate worker flows and enable us to construct synthetic measures of hires, separations, quits, and layoffs back to 1990.

 

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About the Author

 

Steven J.
Davis
  • Steven J. Davis studies unemployment, job displacement, business dynamics, the effect of taxes on work activity, and other topics in economics. He is deputy dean for the faculty and professor of international business and economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and an economic adviser to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office.  He previously taught at Brown University and MIT.  As a visiting scholar at AEI, Mr. Davis studies how policy-related sources of uncertainty affect national economic performance.

  • Phone: 773-702-7312
    Email: sdavis@aei.org

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