Worker Flows and Job Flows: A Quantitative Investigation

Abstract

Worker flows and job flows behave differently over the business cycle. The authors investigate the sources of the differences by studying quantitative properties of a multiple-worker version of the search/matching model that features endogenous job separation and intra-firm wage bargaining. Their calibration incorporates micro and macro-level evidence on worker and job flows. The authors show that the dynamic stochastic equilibrium of the model replicates important cyclical features of worker flows and job flow simultaneously. In particular, the model correctly predicts that hires from unemployment move counter-cyclically while the job creation rate moves pro-cyclically. The key to this result is to allow for a large hiring flow that does not go through unemployment but is part of job creation, for which pro-cyclicality of the job finding rate dominates its cyclicality. The authors also show that the model generates large volatilities of unemployment and vacancies when a worker's outside option is at 83 percent of aggregate labor productivity.

Keywords: Job flows, worker flows, search and matching, business cycles, unemployment, vacancies

JEL Classification: E24, E32, J63, J64