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Posted Wage Cyclicality: Evidence from High-Quality Vacancy Data

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  • Sekyu Choi
  • Benjamin Villena-Roldan
  • Nincen Figueroa

Abstract

We estimate high real wage cyclicality using over a decade of online job ads. Our unique, high-quality data—featuring reliable wage rates, firm identifiers, job titles, hiring standards, vacancy counts, and applicant demographics— provides an accurate measure of firms’ marginal labor cost due to its demand-side and ex ante nature and leads to dependable estimates. Crucially, omitting countercyclical hiring standards leads to underestimating real wage procyclicality. A search and matching model with endogenous hiring standards rationalizes these findings, showing how highquality data is crucial for understanding labor market dynamics

Suggested Citation

  • Sekyu Choi & Benjamin Villena-Roldan & Nincen Figueroa, 2025. "Posted Wage Cyclicality: Evidence from High-Quality Vacancy Data," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 25/812, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    • Handle: RePEc:bri:uobdis:25/812
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