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Wage Cyclicality Revisited: The Role of Hiring Standards

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  • Choi, Sekyu
  • Figueroa, Nincen
  • Villena-Roldán, Benjamin

Abstract

In this paper we analyze cyclicality of wages at the job level, using posted wage data from an online job board in an emerging economy. Our data contains a significant fraction of online job advertisements in the Chilean economy for the period 2009 to 2018 and is representative of the overall wage distribution of newly hired workers. One major advantage of our dataset is the availability of wage information along information on requirements for each job. We find significant levels of posted wage procyclicality, safely ignoring any cyclical mismatch. We show how omitted variable bias, by ignoring countercyclical changes in hiring standards, reduces the amount of cyclicality found in previous studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Choi, Sekyu & Figueroa, Nincen & Villena-Roldán, Benjamin, 2020. "Wage Cyclicality Revisited: The Role of Hiring Standards," MPRA Paper 98240, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:98240
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Suguru Otani, 2024. "Nonparametric Estimation of Matching Efficiency and Elasticity on a Private On-the-Job Search Platform: Evidence from Japan, 2014-2024," Papers 2410.17011, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2025.
    2. Honey Batra & Amanda Michaud & Simon Mongey, 2023. "Online Job Posts Contain Very Little Wage Information," NBER Working Papers 31984, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Jonathon Hazell & Bledi Taska, 2020. "Downward Rigidity in the Wage for New Hires," Discussion Papers 2028, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    4. Alexey Gorn, "undated". "Passive Search and Jobless Recoveries," Working Papers 202113, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.

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    Keywords

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    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
    • J4 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers

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