IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/25-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Workers’ Job Prospects and Young Firm Dynamics

Author

Listed:
  • Seula Kim

Abstract

This paper investigates how worker beliefs and job prospects impact the wages and growth of young firms, as well as the aggregate economy. Building a heterogeneous-firm directed search model where workers gradually learn about firm types, I find that learning generates endogenous wage differentials for young firms. High-performing young firms must pay higher wages than equally high-performing old firms, while low-performing young firms offer lower wages than equally low-performing old firms. Reduced uncertainty or labor market frictions lower the wage differentials, thereby enhancing young firm dynamics and aggregate productivity. The results are consistent with U.S. administrative employee-employer matched data.

Suggested Citation

  • Seula Kim, 2025. "Workers’ Job Prospects and Young Firm Dynamics," Working Papers 25-09, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:25-09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2025/adrm/ces/CES-WP-25-09.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2025
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Joulfaian, David & Rosen, Harvey S, 1994. "Sticking It Out: Entrepreneurial Survival and Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(1), pages 53-75, February.
    2. Paulo Guimarães & Pedro Portugal, 2010. "A simple feasible procedure to fit models with high-dimensional fixed effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 10(4), pages 628-649, December.
    3. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    4. Decker, Ryan A. & Haltiwanger, John & Jarmin, Ron S. & Miranda, Javier, 2016. "Where has all the skewness gone? The decline in high-growth (young) firms in the U.S," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 4-23.
    5. Kim, J. Daniel, 2018. "Is there a startup wage premium? Evidence from MIT graduates," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 637-649.
    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. Kim, Seula, 2025. "Workers' Job Prospects and Young Firm Dynamics," IZA Discussion Papers 17655, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Li, Minyang & Lin, Boqiang, 2024. "Clean energy business expansion and financing availability: The role of government and market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    3. Simplice Asongu & Rexon Nting, 2021. "The role of finance in inclusive human development in Africa revisited," Journal of Economic and Administrative Sciences, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 38(2), pages 345-370, February.
    4. Koutroumpis, Pantelis & Leiponen, Aija & Thomas, Llewellyn D.W., 2020. "Small is big in ICT: The impact of R&D on productivity," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1).
    5. Joonkyu Choi, 2018. "Entrepreneurial Risk-Taking, Young Firm Dynamics, and Aggregate Implications," 2018 Meeting Papers 1018, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Erik E. Lehmann & Julian Schenkenhofer & Katharine Wirsching, 2019. "Hidden champions and unicorns: a question of the context of human capital investment," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 359-374, February.
    7. Simplice A. Asongu, 2020. "Financial Access and Productivity Dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa," International Journal of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(12), pages 1029-1041, September.
    8. Barbara ERMINI, 2008. "Oltre Gibrat. Capitale umano dei fondatori, endogeneita' del finanziamento pubblico e crescita delle giovani imprese hi-tech italiane," Working Papers 322, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    9. Douglas Holtz-Eakin & Chihwa Kao, 2003. "Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth: The Proof Is in the Productivity," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 50, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    10. Fulgence, Samuel & Kwabi, Frank & Boateng, Agyenim & Hu, Wansu & Paudyal, Krishna, 2023. "Cross-country analysis of the effects of political uncertainty on stock price informativeness," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    11. Chima M. Menyelim & Abiola A. Babajide & Alexander E. Omankhanlen & Benjamin I. Ehikioya, 2021. "Financial Inclusion, Income Inequality and Sustainable Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan African Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-15, February.
    12. Léon, Florian, 2019. "Long-term finance and entrepreneurship," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 1-1.
    13. Héctor Salgado-Banda, 2005. "Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis," DEGIT Conference Papers c010_031, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    14. Udo Brixy & Martin Murmann, 2025. "Hiring opportunities for new firms and the business cycle," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 64(3), pages 1387-1413, March.
    15. Lartey, Theophilus & Danso, Albert & Owusu-Agyei, Samuel, 2020. "CEOs' market sentiment and corporate innovation: The role of financial uncertainty, competition and capital intensity," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    16. Hongmin Chun & Maretno Harjoto & Hakjoon Song, 2023. "Economic policy uncertainty and corporate donation: evidence from private firms in Korea," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 909-939, April.
    17. Daniel Ştefan Armeanu & Georgeta Vintilă & Ştefan Cristian Gherghina, 2017. "Empirical Study towards the Drivers of Sustainable Economic Growth in EU-28 Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-22, December.
    18. Youngho Kang & Byung-Yeon Kim, 2018. "Immigration and economic growth: do origin and destination matter?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(46), pages 4968-4984, October.
    19. Alcaraz, Carlo & Villalvazo, Sergio, 2017. "The effect of natural gas shortages on the Mexican economy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 147-153.
    20. Thorsten Lehnert, 2019. "Asset pricing implications of good governance," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(4), pages 1-14, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    wage differentials; firm dynamics; learning; search frictions; uncertainty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
    • M55 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Contracting Devices

    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:cen:wpaper:25-09. 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: Dawn Anderson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.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.