We introduce a new measure of competition: the elasticity of a firm’s profits with respect to its cost level. A higher value of this profit elasticity (PE) signals more intense competi- tion. Using firm-level data we compare PE with the most popular competition measures such as the price cost...

This discussion paper has resulted in chapter 2 in: 'Losing Work, Moving On: International Perspectives On Worker Displacement', Peter J. Kuhn, Ed., 2002, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Kalamazoo, MI, ISBN 0-88099-234-4.

In the past decades several features of U.S. unemployment dynamics have been investigated empirically. The original focus of research was on the duration of unemployment. In later studies the cyclicality of incidence and duration, compositional effects and duration dependence of the exit rate...