The Geography of Unemployment Bilal, Adrien
The Quarterly journal of economics,
08/2023, Letnik:
138, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Abstract Unemployment rates differ widely across local labor markets. I offer new empirical evidence that high local unemployment emerges because of elevated local job-losing rates. Local employers, ...rather than local workers or location-specific factors, account for most of the spatial gaps in job stability. I propose a theory in which spatial differences in job loss emerge in equilibrium because of systematic differences between employers across local labor markets. The spatial sorting decisions of employers in turn shape heterogeneity across locations. Labor market frictions induce productive employers to overvalue locating close to each other. The optimal policy incentivizes them to relocate toward areas with high job-losing rates, providing a rationale for commonly used place-based policies. I estimate the model using French administrative data. The estimated model accounts for over three-quarters of the cross-sectional dispersion in unemployment rates and for the respective contributions of job-losing and job-finding rates. Inefficient location choices by employers amplify spatial unemployment differentials fivefold. Both real-world and optimal place-based policies can yield sizable local and aggregate welfare gains.
We apply the exploitation/exploration dichotomy faced by organizations in business strategy to the decisions of individual executives as to whether to continue in their current organization and ...exploit career opportunities there or explore new ones through the avenue of job search. Specifically, we observe whether executives pursue offers from an executive search firm to be considered for positions at other organizations. Insights from the multi-armed bandit problem help explain who searches and who does not, focusing on the structural attributes of each individual’s situation. Individuals are more likely to search where their current roles are less certain and where broader career experience makes search more useful because the array of possible opportunities is greater. The results also shed light on the operations of executive search firms, who are central actors in executive careers.
•People's economic sentiment shifted for the worse following the COVID-19 outbreak.•Unemployment-related sentiment shifted more strongly than in the Great Recession.•Shifts were substantially larger ...in those countries hit hardest in economic terms.•Contrary to the Great Recession, short-time work schemes did not ease sentiment.•Coinciding slowdowns in European labour markets and consumption are observed.
The COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted an economic hardship unprecedented for the modern age. In this paper, we show that the health crisis and ensuing lockdown, came with an unseen shift in households’ economic sentiment. First, using a European dataset of country-level and regional internet searches, we document a substantial increase in people's business cycle related searches in the months following the coronavirus outbreak. People's unemployment concerns jumped to levels well-above those during the Great Recession. Second, we observe a significant, coinciding slowdown in labour markets and consumption. Third, our analysis shows that the ensuing shift in sentiment was significantly more outspoken in those EU countries hit hardest in economic terms. Finally, we show that unprecedented fiscal policy actions, such as the short-time work schemes implemented or reformed at the onset of the COVID-crisis, however, have not eased economic sentiment.
We use a randomised experiment to evaluate Turkey's vocational training programmes for the unemployed. A detailed follow-up survey of a large sample with low attrition enables precise estimation of ...treatment impacts and their heterogeneity. The average impact of training on employment is positive but close to zero and statistically insignificant, which is much lower than programme officials and applicants expected. Over the first year, training had statistically significant effects on the quality of employment and these positive impacts are stronger when training is offered by private providers. However, administrative data show that after three years these effects have also dissipated.
The interest in flexible job search behaviour (FJSB) among unemployed jobseekers, i.e., the extent to which jobseekers also look for jobs that deviate from their studies and earlier work experience, ...has grown considerably in recent years. Yet, there is large disagreement on both its consequences and drivers. Career scholars as well as policymakers believe that FJSB is important for unemployed and can improve their employment prospects. However, evidence from human resource (HR) literature raises doubts whether FJSB can enhance re-employment success. Similarly, whereas the career literature links FJSB to positive attitudes, such as career adaptability, the HR literature suggests that people searching flexibly may feel pushed into this behaviour due to more negative reasons, like few labour market perspectives. The aim of this study is examining these opposing expectations. We focus on three FJSB types: flexibility with respect to pay/hierarchical level, skill use and commuting time. Hypotheses are tested using two-wave data with 672 unemployed. Results indicate, among others, that career-adaptable people are not inclined to search more flexibly. In addition, FJSB may in certain cases hamper people's re-employment likelihood. People searching more flexibly also more often became underemployed and as such experienced a more negative job quality.
Abstract
We assess the career earnings losses that individual Swedish workers suffered when their occupations’ employment declined. High-quality data allow us to overcome sorting into declining ...occupations on various attributes, including cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Our estimates show that occupational decline reduced mean cumulative earnings from 1986–2013 by no more than 2%–5%. This loss reflects a combination of reduced earnings conditional on employment, reduced years of employment and increased time spent in unemployment and retraining. While on average workers successfully mitigated their losses, those initially at the bottom of their occupations’ earnings distributions lost up to 8%–11%.
JOB DISPLACEMENT AND THE DURATION OF JOBLESSNESS Andersson, Fredrik; Haltiwanger, John C.; Kutzbach, Mark J. ...
The review of economics and statistics,
05/2018, Letnik:
100, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This paper presents a new approach to the measurement of the effects of spatial mismatch that takes advantage of matched employer-employee administrative data integrated with a person-specific job ...accessibility measure, as well as demographic and neighborhood characteristics. We focus on a group of job searchers for plausibly exogenous reasons: lower-income workers with strong labor force attachment separated during a mass layoff. Our results support the spatial mismatch hypothesis. We find that better job accessibility significantly decreases the duration of joblessness among lower-income displaced workers, especially for blacks, women, and older workers.
Using 1979–2012 CPS data for the United States and 1975–2012 NES data for Great Britain, we study wage behavior in both countries, with particular attention to the Great Recession. Real wages are ...procyclical in both countries, but the procyclicality of real wages varies across recessions, and does so differently between the two countries, in ways that defy simple explanations. We devote particular attention to the hypothesis that downward nominal wage rigidity plays an important role in cyclical employment and unemployment fluctuations. We conclude that downward wage rigidity may be less binding and have lesser allocative consequences than is often supposed.
► We examine the relationship between religiosity and civic engagement using Portraits of American Life Study national survey data. ► Religiosity positively related to multiple civic outcomes. ► ...Relationship between religiosity and civic engagement is often explained by religious social networks, not beliefs or affiliation. ► Religious networks have stronger impact on civic engagement than general social networks. ► Having social networks from a religious congregation is associated with increased civic participation, though the specific mechanism at work is unknown.
A substantial literature has found that religiosity is positively related to individuals’ civic engagement and informal helping behavior. Concurrently, social networks as sources of information and encouragement have been suggested as the mechanism underlying phenomena including successful job searches, improved health and greater subjective well-being. In this paper we use data from the Portraits of American Life Study (PALS) to examine whether religiously based social networks explain the well-established relationship between religion and civic engagement. We test potential mechanisms including beliefs, affiliation, and social networks, and we find that having a strong network of religious friends explains the effect of church attendance for several civic and neighborly outcomes. We suggest this phenomenon may exist in other, non-religious, spheres that also produce strong friendship networks.
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