IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/rfinst/v31y2018i12p4762-4814..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk, Unemployment, and the Stock Market: A Rare-Event-Based Explanation of Labor Market Volatility

Author

Listed:
  • Mete Kilic
  • Jessica A Wachter

Abstract

What is the driving force behind the cyclical behavior of unemployment and vacancies? What is the relation between firms’ job-creation incentives and stock market valuations? We answer these questions in a model with time-varying risk, modeled as a small and variable probability of an economic disaster. A high probability implies greater risk and lower future growth, lowering the incentives of firms to invest in hiring. During periods of high risk, stock market valuations are low and unemployment rises. The model thus explains volatility in equity and labor markets, and the relation between the two. Received May 12, 2016; editorial decision October 26, 2017 by Editor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh. Authors have furnished data, which are available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Suggested Citation

  • Mete Kilic & Jessica A Wachter, 2018. "Risk, Unemployment, and the Stock Market: A Rare-Event-Based Explanation of Labor Market Volatility," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(12), pages 4762-4814.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:31:y:2018:i:12:p:4762-4814.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hhy008
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marfè, Roberto & Pénasse, Julien, 2024. "Measuring macroeconomic tail risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    2. Vuillemey, Guillaume & Wasmer, Etienne, 2020. "Frictional unemployment with stochastic bubbles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    3. Bai, Hang & Zhang, Lu, 2022. "Searching for the equity premium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 897-926.
    4. Xu Cheng & Winston Wei Dou & Zhipeng Liao, 2022. "Macro‐Finance Decoupling: Robust Evaluations of Macro Asset Pricing Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(2), pages 685-713, March.
    5. Gao, Han & Lin, Chunpeng & Peng, Juan & Zhao, Siqi, 2024. "Overextrapolation of disaster probabilities and asset pricing in a production economy," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PA), pages 845-854.
    6. Patrick Kehoe & Elena Pastorino & Pierlauro Lopez & Virgiliu Midrigan, 2018. "Asset Prices and Unemployment Fluctuations," 2018 Meeting Papers 1119, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Atanasov, Victoria, 2021. "Unemployment and aggregate stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    8. Lukas Freund & Hanbaek Lee & Pontus Rendahl, 2023. "The Risk-Premium Channel of Uncertainty: Implications for Unemployment and Inflation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 117-137, December.
    9. Pflueger, Carolin & Rinaldi, Gianluca, 2022. "Why does the Fed move markets so much? A model of monetary policy and time-varying risk aversion," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 71-89.
    10. Robert E. Hall & Marianna Kudlyak, 2022. "Why Has the US Economy Recovered So Consistently from Every Recession in the Past 70 Years?," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 1-55.
    11. Bo Liu & Yingjie Niu & Jinqiang Yang & Zhentao Zou, 2020. "Time‐varying risk of rare disasters, investment, and asset pricing," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 503-524, August.
    12. Susanto Basu & Giacomo Candian & Ryan Chahrour & Rosen Valchev, 2021. "Risky Business Cycles," NBER Working Papers 28693, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Mehran Ebrahimian & Jessica Wachter, 2020. "Risks to Human Capital," NBER Working Papers 26823, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Huynh, Nhan, 2023. "Unemployment beta and the cross-section of stock returns: Evidence from Australia," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    15. Jian Chen & Jiaquan Yao & Qunzi Zhang & Xiaoneng Zhu, 2023. "Global Disaster Risk Matters," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 576-597, January.
    16. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2023. "Misery on Main Street, victory on Wall Street: Economic discomfort and the cross-section of global stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    17. Krivenko, Pavel, 2023. "Asset prices in a labor search model with confidence shocks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    18. Baek, Chaeyoon & Baek, Seungho & Glambosky, Mina, 2024. "Macroeconomic impact and stock returns' vulnerability by size, solvency, and financial distress," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    19. Lukas Freund & Hanbaek Lee & Pontus Rendahl, 2023. "The Risk-Premium Channel of Uncertainty: Implications for Unemployment and Inflation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 117-137, December.
    20. Dou, Winston Wei & Ji, Yan & Wu, Wei, 2021. "Competition, profitability, and discount rates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 582-620.

    More about this item

    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:oup:rfinst:v:31:y:2018:i:12:p:4762-4814.. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfsssea.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.