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Wage and Employment Cyclicalities at the Establishment Level

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  • Christian Merkl
  • Heiko Stüber

Abstract

We document substantial cross-sectional heterogeneity of German establishments’ real wage cyclicality over the business cycle. While wages of the median establishment are moderately procyclical, 36 percent of establishments have countercyclical wages. We estimate a negative connection between establishments’ wage cyclicality and their employment cyclicality, thereby providing a benchmark for quantitative macroeconomic models. We propose and calibrate a labor market flow model to match various empirical facts and to perform counterfactual exercises. If all establishments behaved as the most procyclical ones, labor market amplification would drop by one-third. If all followed Nash bargaining, it would drop by more than two-thirds.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Merkl & Heiko Stüber, 2021. "Wage and Employment Cyclicalities at the Establishment Level," CESifo Working Paper Series 9283, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9283
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    wage cyclicality; employment cyclicality; labor market flow model; labor market dynamics; establishments; administrative data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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