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Employment comovements at the sectoral level over the business cycle

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  • Steven Cassou
  • Jesús Vázquez

Abstract

This paper implements the technique suggested by Den Haan (J Monet Econ 46:3–30, 2000 ) to investigate contemporaneous as well as lead and lag correlations among economic data for a range of forecast horizons. The lead/lag approach provides a richer picture of the economic dynamics generating the data and allows one to investigate which variables lead or lag others, and whether the lead or lag pattern is short term or long term in nature. This technique is applied to monthly sectoral level employment data for the USA and shows that among the ten industrial sectors followed by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, six tend to lead the other four. These six have high correlations indicating that the structural shocks generating the data movements are mostly in common. Among the four lagging industries, some lag by longer intervals than others and some have low correlations with the leading industries. These low correlations may indicate that these industries are partially influenced by structural shocks beyond those generating the six leading industries, but they also may indicate that lagging sectors feature a different transmission mechanism of shocks. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Steven Cassou & Jesús Vázquez, 2014. "Employment comovements at the sectoral level over the business cycle," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 1301-1323, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:46:y:2014:i:4:p:1301-1323
    DOI: 10.1007/s00181-013-0720-7
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    Cited by:

    1. Anna Pauliina Sandqvist, 2017. "Dynamics of sectoral business cycle comovement," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(47), pages 4742-4759, October.
    2. Yaniv Yedid-Levi, 2016. "Why does employment in all major sectors move together over the business cycle?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 22, pages 131-156, October.
    3. Nath, Hiranya K., 2016. "A note on the cyclical behavior of sectoral employment in the U.S," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 52-61.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business cycle; Sectoral employment comovement; Leading and lagging sectors; Forecast errors; E32; E37;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

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