Search models of the labor market suggest that a significant determinant of job creation decisions by firms is the expected value of the initial and future real wages that firms have to pay to workers in newly formed employment relationships. Until recently, the focus of the empirical literature...

The labor force participation rate has fallen from over 67 percent in 2000 to almost 63 percent today. Among the reasons are the downward trends in the percentages of women and young people in the labor force.

We use novel high-frequency panel data on individuals' job applications from an online job posting engine to study (1) whether at the beginning of search job seekers with different levels of education apply to different jobs, and (2) how search behavior changes as search continues. First, we...

We estimate a trend in the aggregate labor force participation rate using the age-gender and the birth cohort effects in the labor force participation rates of different demographic groups and the actual demographic composition of the population. We find that, in 2012, the aggregate labor force...

We use a novel approach to studying the heterogeneity in the job finding rates of the nonemployed by classifying the nonemployed by labor force status (LFS) histories, instead of using only one-month LFS. Job finding rates differ substantially across LFS histories: they are 25-30% among those...

We use a novel approach to studying the heterogeneity in the job finding rates of the nonemployed by classifying the nonemployed by labor force status (LFS) histories, instead of using only one-month LFS. Job finding rates differ substantially across LFS histories: they are 25-30% among those...

Workforce participation has declined among those 16 to 24, but there may be good reasons for this. An analysis by age, gender and education looks at who is in school and who is not.

During the current recovery, policymakers have debated whether slow wage growth indicates labor market "slack" that is not adequately reflected in the unemployment rate alone. The relationship—or lack thereof—between the unemployment rate and wage growth has challenged macroeconomists for...

One suggested hypothesis for the dramatic rise in household borrowing that preceded the financial crisis is that low-income households increased their demand for credit to finance higher consumption expenditures in order to "keep up" with higher-income households. Using household level data on...