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Using linked employer-employee data to investigate the speed of adjustments in downsizing firms

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  • Kevin McKinney
  • Lars Vilhuber

Abstract

When firms are faced with a demand shock, adjustment can take many forms. Firms can adjust physical capital, human capital, or both. The speed of adjustment may differ as well: costs of adjustment, the type of shock, the legal and economic enviroment all matter. In this paper, we focus on firms that downsized between 1992 and 1997, but ultimately survive, and investigate how the human capital distribution within a firm influences the speed of adjustment, ceteris paribus. In other words, when do firms use mass layoffs instead of attrition to adjust the level of employment. We combine worker-level wage records and measures of human capital with firm-level characteristics of the production function, and use levels and changes in these variables to characterize the choice of adjustment method and speed. Firms are described/compared up to 9 years prior to death. We also consider how workers fare after leaving downsizing firms, and analyze if observed differences in post-separation outcomes of workers provide clues to the choice of adjustment speed.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau in its series Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers with number 2006-03.

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Length: 29 pages
Date of creation: May 2006
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cen:tpaper:2006-03

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References

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Burgess, Simon & Lane, Julia & Stevens, David, 1997. "The Reallocation of Labour and the Lifecycle of Firms," CEPR Discussion Papers 1713, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  2. John M. Abowd & Robert H. Creecy & Francis Kramarz, 2002. "Computing Person and Firm Effects Using Linked Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2002-06, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
  3. Burgess, Simon & Lane, Julia & Stevens, David, 2000. "Job Flows, Worker Flows, and Churning," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 473-502, July.
  4. John M. Abowd & Lars Vilhuber, 2002. "The Sensitivity of Economic Statistics to Coding Errors in Personal Identifiers," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2002-17, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau, revised Mar 2003.
  5. Anabela Carneiro & Pedro Portugal, 2006. "Wages and the Risk of Displacement," IZA Discussion Papers 1926, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  6. John M. Abowd & Kevin L. McKinney & Lars Vilhuber, 2009. "The Link between Human Capital, Mass Layoffs, and Firm Deaths," NBER Chapters, in: Producer Dynamics: New Evidence from Micro Data, pages 447-472 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Neal, Derek, 1995. "Industry-Specific Human Capital: Evidence from Displaced Workers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(4), pages 653-77, October.
  8. Audra Bowlus & Lars Vilhuber, 2002. "Displaced workers, early leavers, and re-employment wages," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 C1-1, International Conferences on Panel Data.
  9. Paul A. Lengermann, 2002. "Is it Who You Are, Where You Work, or With Whom You Work? Reassessing the Relationship Between Skill Segregation and Wage Inequality," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2002-10, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
  10. Parent, Daniel, 2000. "Industry-Specific Capital and the Wage Profile: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(2), pages 306-23, April.
  11. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen, 2002. "The Deaths of Manufacturing Plants," NBER Working Papers 9026, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. Dunne, T. & Roberts, M.J., 1990. "Wages And The Risk Of Plant Closing," Papers 6-90-2, Pennsylvania State - Department of Economics.
  13. John M. Abowd & Paul A. Lengermann & Kevin L. McKinney, 2002. "The Measurement of Human Capital in the U.S. Economy," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2002-09, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau, revised Mar 2003.
  14. Steven J. Davis & John C. Haltiwanger & Scott Schuh, 1998. "Job Creation and Destruction," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262540932.
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Cited by:
  1. Fredrik Andersson & John Haltiwanger & Mark Kutzbach & Henry Pollakowski & Daniel Weinberg, 2011. "Job Displacement and the Duration of Joblessness: The Role of Spatial Mismatch," Working Papers 11-30, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

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