IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7306.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Young Workers on the Aggregate Labor Market

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Shimer

Abstract

This paper estimates the response of the unemployment rate and labor force participation rate to exogenous variation in the youth share of the working age population, using cross-state variation in lagged birth rates as an instrumental variable. A one percent increase in the youth share reduces the unemployment rate of young workers by more than one percent, and of older workers by more than two percent, holding conditions in other states constant. It raises the labor force participation rate by about a third of a percent for young workers, and by much less for older workers, again ceteris paribus. These results are consistent with increasing returns to scale ('thick market externalities') in the labor market. Young workers are frequently mismatched in their employment, and firms create jobs to take advantage of this mismatch. Data on gross job creation and destruction in manufacturing support this theory. I also reconcile these results with existing evidence on the labor market impact of young workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Shimer, 1999. "The Impact of Young Workers on the Aggregate Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 7306, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7306
    Note: EFG LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7306.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven J. Davis & Prakash Lougani & Ramamohan Mahidhara, 1997. "Regional Labor Fluctuations: Oil Shocks, Military Spending, and Other Driving Forces," JCPR Working Papers 4, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    2. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119.
    3. Kenneth Burdett & Dale T. Mortensen, 1989. "Equilibrium Wage Differentials and Employer Size," Discussion Papers 860, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    4. Sanders Korenman & David Neumark, 2000. "Cohort Crowding and Youth Labor Markets (A Cross-National Analysis)," NBER Chapters, in: Youth Employment and Joblessness in Advanced Countries, pages 57-106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Oliver Jean Blanchard & Peter Diamond, 1989. "The Beveridge Curve," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 20(1), pages 1-76.
    6. 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, December.
    7. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Lawrence F. Katz, 1992. "Regional Evolutions," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(1), pages 1-76.
    8. George L. Perry, 1970. "Changing Labor Markets and Inflation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 1(3), pages 411-448.
    9. Robert J. Gordon, 1981. "Inflation, Flexible Exchange Rates, and the Natural Rate of Unemployment," NBER Working Papers 0708, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Scott Schuh & Robert K. Triest, 1998. "Job reallocation and the business cycle: new facts for an old debate," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 42(Jun), pages 271-357.
    2. Skans, Oskar Nordstrom, 2005. "Age effects in Swedish local labor markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 419-426, March.
    3. Alfred Garloff & Carsten Pohl & Norbert Schanne, 2011. "Do smaller labour market entry cohorts really reduce German unemployment?," ERSA conference papers ersa10p658, European Regional Science Association.
    4. Robert Shimer, 2007. "Mismatch," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1074-1101, September.
    5. Philipp Schmidt-Dengler, 2003. "A structural model of aggregate US job flows: another look," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 113-118.
    6. R. Jason Faberman, 2003. "Job Flows and Establishment Characteristics: Variations Across U.S. Metropolitan Areas," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2003-609, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    7. Carsten Ochsen, 2021. "Age cohort effects on unemployment in the USA: Evidence from the regional level," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(4), pages 1025-1053, August.
    8. R. Jason Faberman, 2005. "What’s In a City?: Understanding the Micro-Level Employer Dynamics Underlying Urban Growth," Working Papers 386, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    9. Scott Schuh & Robert K Triest, 1998. "Job Reallocation And The Business Cycle: New Facts An Old Debate," Working Papers 98-11, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    10. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2711-2805 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Raphael, Steven & Winter-Ember, Rudolf, 2001. "Identifying the Effect of Unemployment on Crime," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 259-283, April.
    12. Shigeru Fujita, 2011. "Dynamics of worker flows and vacancies: evidence from the sign restriction approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 89-121, January/F.
    13. Kondo, Illenin O., 2018. "Trade-induced displacements and local labor market adjustments in the U.S," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 180-202.
    14. Yoonsoo Lee, 2006. "Relocation patterns in U.S. manufacturing," Working Papers (Old Series) 0624, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    15. Giovanni Gallipoli & Gianluigi Pelloni, 2013. "Macroeconomic Effects of Job Reallocations: A Survey," Review of Economic Analysis, Digital Initiatives at the University of Waterloo Library, vol. 5(2), pages 127-176, December.
    16. Andrew Figura, 2003. "The effect of restructuring on unemployment," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-56, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Costain, James S. & Reiter, Michael, 2008. "Business cycles, unemployment insurance, and the calibration of matching models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1120-1155, April.
    18. Steven J. Davis & John Haltiwanger, 1998. "Measuring Gross Worker and Job Flows," NBER Chapters, in: Labor Statistics Measurement Issues, pages 77-122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Pieter A. Gautier & Coen N. Teulings, 2000. "The Right Man for the Job: Increasing Returns in Search?," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0066, Econometric Society.
    20. Imen Ben Mohamed & Marine Salès, 2015. "Credit imperfections, labor market frictions and unemployment: a DSGE approach," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01082491, HAL.
    21. Aki Kangasharju & Jaakko Pehkonen, 2001. "Employment-output link in Finland : evidence from regional data," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 41-50, Spring.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7306. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.