IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hoo/wpaper/15103.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring Job-Finding Rates and Matching Efficiency with Heterogeneous Jobseekers

Author

Listed:
  • Robert E. Hall

    (Hoover Institution)

  • Sam Schulhofer-Wohl

Abstract

Matching efficiency is the productivity of the process for matching jobseekers to available jobs. Job-finding is the output; vacant jobs and active jobseekers are the inputs. Measurement of matching efficiency follows the same principles as measuring a Hicks-neutral index of productivity of production. We develop a framework for measuring matching productivity when the population of jobseekers is heterogeneous. The efficiency index for each type of jobseeker is the monthly job-finding rate for the type adjusted for the overall tightness of the labor market. We find that overall matching efficiency declined over the period, at just below its earlier downward trend. We develop a new approach to measuring matching rates that avoids counting short- duration jobs as successes. And we show that the outward shift in the Beveridge curve in the post-crisis period is the result of pre-crisis trends, not a downward shift in matching efficiency attributable to the crisis.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert E. Hall & Sam Schulhofer-Wohl, 2015. "Measuring Job-Finding Rates and Matching Efficiency with Heterogeneous Jobseekers," Economics Working Papers 15103, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
    • Handle: RePEc:hoo:wpaper:15103
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/15103_-_hall_and_schulhofer-wohl_-_measuring_job-finding_rates_and_matching_efficiency_with_heterogeneous_jobseekers_-_january_2015.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:pri:cepsud:215krueger is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Henry Hyatt & James Spletzer, 2013. "The recent decline in employment dynamics," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-21, December.
    3. Nakajima, Makoto, 2012. "A quantitative analysis of unemployment benefit extensions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(7), pages 686-702.
    4. Flinn, Christopher J & Heckman, James J, 1983. "Are Unemployment and Out of the Labor Force Behaviorally Distinct Labor Force States?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 28-42, January.
    5. Henry S. Farber & Robert G. Valletta, 2015. "Do Extended Unemployment Benefits Lengthen Unemployment Spells?: Evidence from Recent Cycles in the U.S. Labor Market," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(4), pages 873-909.
    6. Michael W.L. Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Aysegul Sahin & Robert G. Valletta, 2011. "The Labor Market in the Great Recession: An Update," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 11-173/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    7. Christopher A. Pissarides & Barbara Petrongolo, 2001. "Looking into the Black Box: A Survey of the Matching Function," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 390-431, June.
    8. Alan B. Krueger & Judd Cramer & David Cho, 2014. "Are the Long-Term Unemployed on the Margins of the Labor Market?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 45(1 (Spring), pages 229-299.
    9. Stanislav Kolenikov, 2010. "Resampling variance estimation for complex survey data," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 10(2), pages 165-199, June.
    10. Marcus Hagedorn & Fatih Karahan & Iourii Manovskii & Kurt Mitman, 2013. "Unemployment Benefits and Unemployment in the Great Recession: The Role of Macro Effects," NBER Working Papers 19499, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Mary C. Daly & Bart Hobijn & Aysegül Sahin & Robert G. Valletta, 2012. "A Search and Matching Approach to Labor Markets: Did the Natural Rate of Unemployment Rise?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 3-26, Summer.
    12. Alan B. Krueger & Andreas Mueller, 2011. "Job Search and Job Finding in a Period of Mass Unemployment: Evidence from High-Frequency Longitudinal Data," Working Papers 1283, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    13. repec:zbw:rwirep:0305 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Benedikt Herz & Thijs van Rens, 2011. "Structural unemployment," Economics Working Papers 1276, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    15. Ronald Bachmann & Mathias Sinning, 2016. "Decomposing the Ins and Outs of Cyclical Unemployment," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(6), pages 853-876, December.
    16. Shigeru Fujita, 2011. "Effects of extended unemployment insurance benefits: evidence from the monthly CPS," Working Papers 10-35, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    17. Alan B. Krueger & Andreas Mueller, 2011. "Job Search, Emotional Well-Being and Job Finding in a Period of Mass Unemployment: Evidence from High-Frequency Longitudinal Data," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(1 (Spring), pages 1-81.
    18. Abowd, John M & Zellner, Arnold, 1985. "Estimating Gross Labor-Force Flows," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(3), pages 254-283, June.
    19. repec:pri:indrel:dsp014j03cz656 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. repec:pri:indrel:dsp01th83kz40p is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Michael W. L. Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Aysegul Sahin & Robert G. Valletta, 2011. "The Labor Market in the Great Recession — An Update to September 2011," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 43(2 (Fall)), pages 353-384.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Erin Wolcott, 2018. "Employment Inequality: Why Do the Low-Skilled Work Less Now?," 2018 Meeting Papers 487, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Pizzinelli, Carlo & Speigner, Bradley, 2017. "Matching efficiency and labour market heterogeneity in the United Kingdom," Bank of England working papers 667, Bank of England.
    3. Ahn, Hie Joo, 2016. "Heterogeneity in the Dynamics of Disaggregate Unemployment," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2016-063, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US).
    4. Sterk, Vincent, 2016. "The dark corners of the labor market," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86244, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Hie Ahn & James Hamilton, 2016. "Heterogeneity and Unemployment Dynamics," Working Papers id:11130, eSocialSciences.
    6. Hornstein, Andreas & Kudlyak, Marianna, 2015. "Estimating Matching Efficiency with Variable Search Effort," Working Paper Series 2016-24, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, revised 06 Dec 2016.
    7. Craighead, William, 2016. "Hysteresis in a New Keynesian Model," MPRA Paper 70777, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Robert E. Hall, 2015. "Comment on "Declining Desire to Work and Downward Trends in Unemployment and Participation"," NBER Chapters,in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2015, Volume 30, pages 502-508 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Modestino, Alicia Sasser & Shoag, Daniel & Ballance, Joshua, 2016. "Downskilling: changes in employer skill requirements over the business cycle," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 333-347.
    10. repec:eee:macchp:v2-2131 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Vincent Sterk, 2016. "The Dark Corners of the Labor Market," Discussion Papers 1603, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    12. Robert E. Hall, 2016. "Comment," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 502-508.

    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
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

    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:hoo:wpaper:15103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Webmaster). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/hostaus.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.