American Economic Journal:
Macroeconomics
ISSN 1945-7707 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7715 (Online)
Job Search Behavior over the Business Cycle
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
(pp. 190–215)
Abstract
We create a novel measure of job search effort exploiting the American Time Use and Current Population Surveys. We examine the cyclicality of search effort using time-series, cross-state, and individual variation and find that it is countercyclical. We then set up a search and matching model with endogenous search effort and show that search effort does not amplify labor market fluctuations but rather dampens them. Lastly, we examine the role of search effort in driving recent unemployment dynamics and show that the unemployment rate would have been 0.5 to 1 percentage points higher in the 2008–2014 period had search effort not increased.Citation
Mukoyama, Toshihiko, Christina Patterson, and Ayşegül Şahin. 2018. "Job Search Behavior over the Business Cycle." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 10 (1): 190–215. DOI: 10.1257/mac.20160202Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- E24 Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
- E32 Business Fluctuations; Cycles
- J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
- J64 Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search