The Decline of Job Loss and Why It Matters
Steven J. Davis | ASSA 2008 Annual Meeting
January 03, 2008
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There is considerable evidence that American workers face lower risks of job loss in recent years than ten, twenty or thirty years earlier. I summarize some of the evidence for this claim and explain why the decline of job loss matters. My attention centers on "unwelcome" job loss: employer-initiated separations that lead to unemployment, temporary or persistent drops in earnings, and other significant costs for job losers. Since there is no fully satisfactory statistic for the incidence of job loss, I consider several measures and data sources.

Steven J. Davis is a visiting scholar at AEI and a professor of international business and economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

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About the Author

 

Steven J.
Davis
  • Steven J. Davis studies the effect of taxes on work activity, the creation and loss of jobs, the employment impact of wage-setting rules, and other labor market issues. He is a professor of international business and economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He previously taught at Brown University and MIT and served as a consultant and researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. As a visiting scholar at AEI, Mr. Davis studies how tax differences in states and countries lead to differences in employment, household work, and leisure time.

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

  • Assistant Info

    Name: Chad Hill
    Phone: 202-862-5862
    Email: chad.hill@aei.org
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