Labor responses, regulation and business churn in a small open economy

We analyze labor responses to technology shocks when firm entry is sluggish due to endogenous sunk costs. We provide closed-form solutions for transition dynamics that show, when firm entry is slow to respond, labor will increase (decrease) relative to its long-run response if returns to labor input at the firm level are increasing (decreasing). Under stricter regulation (slower business churn), such short-run deviations of labor persist for longer. There is also potential for short-run productivity effects to differ from the long run.