In this paper we use micro panel data to examine the effects of oil price shocks on employment and real wages, at the aggregate and industry levels. We also measure differences in the employment and wage responses for workers differentiated on the basis of skill level. We find that oil price increases result in a substantial decline in real wages for all workers, but raise the relative wage of skilled workers. The use of panel data econometric techniques to control for unobserved heterogeneity is essential to uncover this result, which is completely hidden in OLS estimates. While the short-run effect of oil price increases on aggregate employment is negative, the long-run effect is negligible. We find that oil price shocks induce substantial changes in employment shares and relative wages across industries. However, we find little evidence that oil price shocks cause labor to flow into those sectors with relative wage increases.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
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.:
Matthew Shapiro & Mark Watson, 1988.
"Sources of Business Cycles Fluctuations,"
NBER Chapters,
in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1988, Volume 3, pages 111-156
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!]
Cited by: (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.)
Paul Gomme & Richard Rogerson & Peter Rupert & Randall Wright, 2005.
"The Business Cycle and the Life Cycle,"
NBER Chapters,
in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2004, Volume 19, pages 415-592
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!]