This article analyses the relevance of the extensive and the intensive margin of labour adjustment over the business cycle in Germany and in the United States. Previous research has found that, firstly, the extensive margin dominates and that, secondly, the relative relevance of the two margins...

This paper explains how real wages are procyclical for those who stay with the same employer. On the basis of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data for the period of 1974-75 to 1990-91, we find that the substantial wage procyclicality among job stayers is mostly accounted for by great wage...

This testimony makes three main points. First, income volatility, especially when it involves income declines, imposes significant hardships on American families. It heightens stress about finances and may increase household living expenses. These hardships are most pronounced for middle-and...

This paper documents that over the past 25 years, aggregate hourly real wages in the United States have become substantially more volatile relative to output. We use micro-data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to show that this increase in relative volatility is predominantly due to...

Using newly digitized unemployment insurance claims data we construct a historical monthly unemployment series for U.S. states going back to January 1947. The constructed series are highly correlated with the Bureau of Labor Statics' state-level unemployment data, which are only available from...

**Below is a description of the paper and not the actual abstract.** This paper examines the role of the average workweek in U.S. manufacturing industries as a leading indicator. Our analysis investigates the relationship between average weekly hours of production workers in manufacturing, a...

We analyze changes in unemployment, marginal labor force attachment and participation in Canada and the U.S.. Using two complementary decompositions, we show the importance for the comparative evolution of aggregate unemployment of changes in the fraction of the non-employed who are unemployed...

We analyze changes in unemployment, marginal labor force attachment and participation in Canada and the U.S. Using two complementary decompositions, we show the importance for the comparative evolution of aggregate unemployment of changes in the fraction of the non-employed who are unemployed...

The U.S. employment rate fluctuates asymmetrically over the business cycle: it contracts deeply and sharply during recessions, but it recovers slowly and gradually during expansions. By contrast, output features nearly symmetric fluctuations. I explain these facts using a search-and-matching...