We study the paths over time that individuals follow in the labor market, as revealed in the monthly Current Population Survey. Some people face much higher flow values from work than in a non-market activity; if they lose a job, they find another soon. Others have close to equal flow values and...

We study the general equilibrium effects of social insurance on the transition in a model in which the process of moving workers from matches in the state sector to new matches in the private sector takes time and involves uncertainty. We find that adding social insurance may slow transition....

New data compel a new view of events in the labor market during a recession. Unemployment rises almost entirely because jobs become harder to find. Recessions involve little increase in the flow of workers out of jobs. Another important finding from new data is that a large fraction of workers...