IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/upf/upfgen/1285.html

How important is the intensive margin of labor adjustment?

Author

Listed:
  • Thijs van Rens

Abstract

Using new quarterly data for hours worked in OECD countries, Ohanian and Raffo (2011) argue that in many OECD countries, particularly in Europe, hours per worker are quantitatively important as an intensive margin of labor adjustment, possibly because labor market frictions are higher than in the US. I argue that this conclusion is not supported by the data. Using the same data on hours worked, I find evidence that labor market frictions are higher in Europe than in the US, like Ohanian and Raffo, but also that these frictions seem to affect the intensive margin at least as much as the extensive margin of labor adjustment.

Suggested Citation

  • Thijs van Rens, 2011. "How important is the intensive margin of labor adjustment?," Economics Working Papers 1285, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2011.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:1285
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/1285.pdf
    File Function: Whole Paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hall, Robert E, 1997. "Macroeconomic Fluctuations and the Allocation of Time," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 223-250, January.
    2. Jordi Galí & Thijs van Rens, 2021. "The Vanishing Procyclicality of Labour Productivity [Why have business cycle fluctuations become less volatile?]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 302-326.
    3. Luca Gambetti & Jordi Galí, 2009. "On the Sources of the Great Moderation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 26-57, January.
    4. Lee E. Ohanian, 2010. "The Economic Crisis from a Neoclassical Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(4), pages 45-66, Fall.
    5. King, Robert G. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1999. "Resuscitating real business cycles," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 927-1007, Elsevier.
    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. Jordi Galí & Thijs van Rens, 2021. "The Vanishing Procyclicality of Labour Productivity [Why have business cycle fluctuations become less volatile?]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 302-326.
    2. Arno Hantzsche & Simon Savsek & Sebastian Weber, 2018. "Erratum to: Labour Market Adjustments to Financing Conditions under Sectoral Rigidities in the Euro Area," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 29(5), pages 1153-1154, November.
    3. Alexander Herzog-Stein & Patrick Nüß, 2016. "Extensive versus intensive margin over the business cycle: New evidence for Germany and the United States," IMK Working Paper 163-2016, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    4. Jordan Roulleau-Pasdeloup, 2016. "The Government Spending Multiplier in a Deep Recession," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 16.22, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    5. Jordan Roulleau-Pasdeloup, 2014. "Why is the Government Spending Multiplier Larger at the Zero Lower Bound ? Not (Only) Because of the Zero Lower Bound," Working Papers 2014-02, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.

    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. Ohanian, Lee E. & Raffo, Andrea, 2012. "Aggregate hours worked in OECD countries: New measurement and implications for business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 40-56.
    2. Maarten Dossche & Andrea Gavazzi & Vivien Lewis, 2023. "Labor Adjustment and Productivity in the OECD," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 47, pages 111-130, January.
    3. Jordi Galí & Thijs van Rens, 2021. "The Vanishing Procyclicality of Labour Productivity [Why have business cycle fluctuations become less volatile?]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 302-326.
    4. Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler & J. David López-Salido, 2007. "Markups, Gaps, and the Welfare Costs of Business Fluctuations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 44-59, November.
    5. Mitman, Kurt & Rabinovich, Stanislav, 2024. "Do unemployment benefit extensions explain the emergence of jobless recoveries?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    6. Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler & J. David López-Salido, 2003. "The euro area inefficiency gap," Working Papers 0302, Banco de España.
    7. Cantore, C. & Ferroni, F. & Le n-Ledesma, M A., 2011. "Interpreting the Hours-Technology time-varying relationship," Working papers 351, Banque de France.
    8. Hansen, G.D. & Ohanian, L.E., 2016. "Neoclassical Models in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2043-2130, Elsevier.
    9. Justiniano, Alejandro & Primiceri, Giorgio E. & Tambalotti, Andrea, 2010. "Investment shocks and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 132-145, March.
    10. Haefke, Christian & Sonntag, Marcus & van Rens, Thijs, 2013. "Wage rigidity and job creation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 887-899.
    11. Diego Comin & Mark Gertler, 2006. "Medium-Term Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 523-551, June.
    12. Bachmann, Rüdiger & Zorn, Peter, 2020. "What drives aggregate investment? Evidence from German survey data," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    13. Faberman, R. Jason, 2017. "Job flows, jobless recoveries, and the Great Moderation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 152-170.
    14. Julien Champagne, 2015. "The Carrot and the Stick: The Business Cycle Implications of Incentive Pay in the Labor Search Model," Staff Working Papers 15-35, Bank of Canada.
    15. Harold L. Cole & Lee E. Ohanian, 2013. "The Impact of Cartelization, Money, and Productivity Shocks on the International Great Depression," NBER Working Papers 18823, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Mary C. Daly & John G. Fernald & Òscar Jordà & Fernanda Nechio, 2013. "Shocks and Adjustments," Working Paper Series 2013-32, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    17. Marco Stamegna, 2024. "Induced innovation, the distributive cycle, and the changing pattern of labour productivity cyclicality: an SVAR analysis for the US economy," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 41(3), pages 881-929, October.
    18. Ruy Lama, 2011. "Accounting for Output Drops in Latin America," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 295-316, April.
    19. Mitra, Aruni, 2024. "The productivity puzzle and the decline of unions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    20. Ben Malin, 2006. "Lower-Frequency Macroeconomic Fluctuations: Living Standards and Leisure," 2006 Meeting Papers 752, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    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
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

    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:upf:upfgen:1285. 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: the person in charge The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask the person in charge to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.upf.edu/en/web/econ/ .

    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.