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The importance of social skills in recovery from graduating in a recession

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  • Kim, Sun Hyung

Abstract

I study how the impacts of initial unemployment conditions on labor market returns vary for US college graduates with different levels of cognitive and social skills. Using the NLSY79 whose respondents graduated from college between 1979 and 1989, I find that the cost of recessions is substantial and unequal. The different roles of skills in workers’ careers explain a large degree of heterogeneity in the costs of labor market shocks at graduation. When a worker with higher social skills graduates in a recession, she widens her advantage mostly through higher academic attainment and mobility toward highly rated and high-skilled occupations.

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  • Kim, Sun Hyung, 2023. "The importance of social skills in recovery from graduating in a recession," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 387-411.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:205:y:2023:i:c:p:387-411
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.11.014
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Recession; Human capital; College graduates; Skills;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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