It is frequently alleged that the persistent, high rates of unemployment in many European countries are due, at least in part, to various labor market rigidities. One of these rigidities is the high cost of firing workers, compared with the cost in the United States, or in Europe in the early...

Using a band pass filter, this paper estimates plant-level job flows at different frequencies and examines the characteristics of the high frequency (transitory) and low frequency (permanent) component flows. Because high frequency employment movements, which likely result in changes in the...

We look for evidence of "hysteresis" in the U.S. unemployment rate - that is, that current labor market outcomes affect the future equilibrium level of the unemployment rate. We first examine (using a variety of econometric tests for unit roots) whether the unemployment rate tends to come back...

An important step in understanding why employment fluctuates cyclically is determining the relative importance of cyclical movements in permanent and temporary plant-level employment changes. If movements in permanent employment changes are important, then recessions are times when the...

I present a simple model of migration in which the net migration rate into a state depends on the expected present value of labor market conditions and amenities. I show that though this is a common model, existing empirical estimates do not separately identify the underlying parameters. The...

The probability that an individual participates in the labor force declines precipitously beyond age 50. This feature of labor supply suggests that ongoing shifts in the age distribution of the population will put substantial downward pressure on the aggregate labor force participation rate....