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Slow to Hire, Quick to Fire: Employment Dynamics with Asymmetric Responses to News

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  • Cosmin Ilut
  • Matthias Kehrig
  • Martin Schneider

Abstract

We study the distribution of employment growth when hiring responds more to bad shocks than to good shocks. Such a concave hiring rule endogenously generates higher moments observed in establishment-level Census data for both the cross section and the time series. In particular, both aggregate conditional volatility ("macro-volatility") and the cross-sectional dispersion of employment growth ("micro-volatility") are countercyclical. Moreover, employment growth is negatively skewed in the cross section and time series, while TFP is not. The estimated response of employment growth to TFP innovations is su ciently concave to induce signi cant skewness as well as movements in volatility of employment growth.

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  • Cosmin Ilut & Matthias Kehrig & Martin Schneider, 2015. "Slow to Hire, Quick to Fire: Employment Dynamics with Asymmetric Responses to News," Working Papers 15-02, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:15-02
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    Cited by:

    1. Yu, Edison G., 2018. "Dynamic market participation and endogenous information aggregation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 491-517.
    2. Bachmann, Rüdiger & Elstner, Steffen & Hristov, Atanas, 2017. "Surprise, surprise – Measuring firm-level investment innovations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 107-148.
    3. Chacko George & Florian Kuhn, 2019. "Business Cycle Implications of Capacity Constraints under Demand Shocks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 94-121, April.
    4. Ryan Decker & John Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2018. "Changing Business Dynamism and Productivity : Shocks vs. Responsiveness," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2018-007, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Cesa-Bianchi, Ambrogio & Pesaran, M Hashem & Rebucci, Alessandro, 2018. "Uncertainty and Economic Activity: A Multi-Country Perspective," CEPR Discussion Papers 12713, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Baqaee, David Rezza, 2020. "Asymmetric inflation expectations, downward rigidity of wages, and asymmetric business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 174-193.
    7. Carstensen, Kai & Bachmann, Rüdiger & Schneider, Martin & Lautenbacher, Stefan, 2018. "Uncertainty is Change," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181572, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Dongya Koh & Raül Santaeulàlia-Llopis, 2017. "Countercyclical Elasticity of Substitution," Working Papers 946, Barcelona Graduate School of Economics.
    9. Kölling, Arnd, 2018. "It's not about adjustment costs: Estimating asymmetries in long-run labor demand using a fractional panel probit model," Working Papers 95, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute of Management Berlin (IMB).
    10. Shaowei Ke & Qi Zhang, 2020. "Randomization and Ambiguity Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 1159-1195, May.
    11. Muzaffarjon Ahunov & Dilnovoz Abdurazzakova & Nurmukhammad Yusupov, 2019. "Who creates jobs in transition economies? The role of entrepreneurial risk preferences," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(3), pages 1876-1886.
    12. Larry G. Epstein & Yoram Halevy, 2019. "Hard-to-Interpret Signals," Working Papers tecipa-634, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    13. Domenico Ferraro, 2018. "The Asymmetric Cyclical Behavior of the U.S. Labor Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 145-162, October.
    14. Sebastian Graves, 2020. "The State Dependent Effectiveness of Hiring Subsidies," International Finance Discussion Papers 1290, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Nicholas Bloom & Fatih Guvenen & Sergio Salgado, 2016. "Skewed Business Cycles," 2016 Meeting Papers 1621, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Domenico Ferraro & Giuseppe Fiori, 2018. "The Scarring Effect of Asymmetric Business Cycles," 2018 Meeting Papers 283, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Calvino, Flavio & Criscuolo, Chiara & Menon, Carlo & Secchi, Angelo, 2018. "Growth volatility and size: A firm-level study," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 390-407.
    18. Straub, Ludwig & Ulbricht, Robert, 2019. "Endogenous second moments: A unified approach to fluctuations in risk, dispersion, and uncertainty," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 625-660.
    19. Guihai Zhao, 2020. "Learning, Equilibrium Trend, Cycle, and Spread in Bond Yields," Staff Working Papers 20-14, Bank of Canada.
    20. Lautenbacher, Stefan, 2020. "Subjective Uncertainty, Expectations, and Firm Behavior," MPRA Paper 103516, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. David Berger & Ian Dew-Becker & Stefano Giglio, 2020. "Uncertainty Shocks as Second-Moment News Shocks," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 87(1), pages 40-76.
    22. David Berger & Joseph Vavra, 2017. "Shocks vs. Responsiveness: What Drives Time-Varying Dispersion?," NBER Working Papers 23143, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Yoo, Donghoon, 2019. "Ambiguous information, permanent income, and consumption fluctuations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 79-96.
    24. Christopher Busch & David Domeij & Fatih Guvenen & Rocio Madera, 2020. "Skewed Idiosyncratic Income Risk over the Business Cycle: Sources and Insurance," Working Papers 1180, Barcelona Graduate School of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    business cycles; time varying volatility; asymmetric adjustment; skewness;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor

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