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Employment Adjustment Costs and Establishment Characteristics

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Author Info
Lucia Foster

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Abstract

Microeconomic employment adjustment costs affect not only employment adjustments at the micro level but may also profoundly impact aggregate employment dynamics. This paper sheds light on the nature of these microeconomic employment adjustment costs and quantifies their impact on aggregate employment dynamics. The empirical exercises in the paper analyze the differences in employment adjustments by establishment characteristics within a hazard model framework using micro data for approximately 10,000 U.S. manufacturing plants. I find that employment adjustments vary systematically by establishment characteristics; moreover, these variations suggest that employment adjustment costs reflect the technology of the plant, the skill of its workforce, and the plant's access to capital markets. Concerning the structure of the adjustment costs, the employment adjustments have significant nonlinearities and asymmetries consistent with nonconvex, asymmetric adjustment costs. Specifically, employment adjustment behavior shows substantial inertia in the face of large employment surpluses, varied adjustment behavior for small deviations from desired employment, and (S,s)-type of bimodal adjustments in response to large employment shortages. Finally, the micro level heterogeneity, asymmetries, and nonlinearities significantly impact sectoral and aggregate employment dynamics.

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Paper provided by Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau in its series Working Papers with number 99-15.

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Date of creation: Nov 1999
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Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:99-15

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Related research
Keywords: CES; economic; research; micro; data; microdata; chief; economist;

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References listed on IDEAS
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. Caballero, Ricardo J & Engel, Eduardo M R A & Haltiwanger, John, 1997. "Aggregate Employment Dynamics: Building from Microeconomic Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 115-37, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Harry J. Holzer & Edward B. Montgomery, 1990. "Asymmetries and Rigidities in Wage Adjustments by Firms," NBER Working Papers 3274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Layard, Richard & Nickell, Stephen, 1986. "Unemployment in Britain," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 53(210(S)), pages S121-69, Supplemen. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Jaramillo, Fidel & Schiantarelli, Fabio & Sembenelli, Alessandro, 1993. "Are Adjustment Costs for Labor Asymmetric? An Econometric Test on Panel Data for Italy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(4), pages 640-48, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Caballero, Ricardo J & Engel, Eduardo M R A, 1993. "Microeconomic Adjustment Hazards and Aggregate Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 108(2), pages 359-83, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. kandel, E. & Pearson, N.D., 1995. "The Value of Labor Force Flexibility," Papers 95-04, Rochester, Business - Financial Research and Policy Studies.
  7. Mayshar, Joram & Solon, Gary, 1993. "Shift Work and the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 224-28, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Timothy Dunne & John Haltiwanger & Lucia Foster, 2000. "Wage and Productivity Dispersion in U.S. Manufacturing: The Role of Computer Investment," NBER Working Papers 7465, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Pfann, Gerard A & Palm, Franz C, 1993. "Asymmetric Adjustment Costs in Non-linear Labour Demand Models for the Netherlands and U.K. Manufacturing Sectors," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 60(2), pages 397-412, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Gerard A. Pfann, 1996. "Adjustment Costs in Factor Demand," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(3), pages 1264-1292, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. James D Adams & Adam B Jaffe, 1994. "The Span of the Effect of R&D in the Firm and Industry," Working Papers 94-7, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau. [Downloadable!]
  12. Pfann, Gerald A. & Verspagen, Bart, 1989. "The structure of adjustment costs for labour in the Dutch manufacturing sector," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 365-371. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Chang, Ching-Cheng & Stefanou, Spiro E., 1988. "Specification and estimation of asymmetric adjustment rates for quasi-fixed factors of production," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 145-151, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Dunne, Timothy & Roberts, Mark J & Samuelson, Larry, 1989. "Plant Turnover and Gross Employment Flows in the U.S. Manufacturing Sector," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(1), pages 48-71, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Griliches, Zvi & Hausman, Jerry A., 1986. "Errors in variables in panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 93-118, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Nickell, Stephen, 1984. "An Investigation of the Determinants of Manufacturing Employment in the United Kingdom," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(4), pages 529-57, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Bergstrom, Villy & Panas, Epaminondas E, 1992. "How Robust Is the Capital-Skill Complementarity Hypothesis?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(3), pages 540-46, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. 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.
  19. Lucia Foster, 1999. "On The Sources And Size Of Employment Adjustment Costs," Working Papers 99-7, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau. [Downloadable!]
  20. Walter Y. Oi, 1962. "Labor as a Quasi-Fixed Factor," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70, pages 538. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1992. "Spatial and Temporal Aggregation in the Dynamics of Labor Demand," NBER Working Papers 4055, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, 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. Higson, C. & Holly, S. & Kattuman, P. & S. Platis, 2001. "The Business Cycle, Macroeconomic Shocks and the Cross Section: The Growth of UK Quoted Companies," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0114, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. [Downloadable!]
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