IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/rwirep/279546.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor market news and expectations about jobs & earnings

Author

Listed:
  • Schmidpeter, Bernhard

Abstract

I show that workers update expectations about job search and salary growth when exposed to labor market news. To identify the impact of news on expectations, I exploit Foxconn's announcement to build a large production plant in Racine County, Wisconsin. Exposure to positive news leads to an increase in expected salary growth at the current firm, with no discernible differences between workers who are optimistic about receiving any outside offer in the future and those who are not. This suggests that firms and workers bargain frequently over wages, even in the absence of an outside job offer. Moreover, I find that individuals revise their expectations about potential outside wage offers upward, anchoring their beliefs in Foxconn's publicly announced wages. Investigating whether individuals act on their updated beliefs, I find evidence that exposure to the news leads to a small increase in current consumption. Using Foxconn's later announcement of a scaled down version of the initial investment plan, I find that individuals revise their expectations back toward baseline.

Suggested Citation

  • Schmidpeter, Bernhard, 2023. "Labor market news and expectations about jobs & earnings," Ruhr Economic Papers 1030, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:rwirep:279546
    DOI: 10.4419/96973199
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/279546/1/1867596202.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4419/96973199?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Autor & David Dorn & Gordon Hanson & Kaveh Majlesi, 2020. "Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(10), pages 3139-3183, October.
    2. Charles F. Manski & John V. Pepper, 2018. "How Do Right-to-Carry Laws Affect Crime Rates? Coping with Ambiguity Using Bounded-Variation Assumptions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(2), pages 232-244, May.
    3. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    4. Alex Domash & Lawrence H. Summers, 2022. "How Tight are U.S. Labor Markets?," NBER Working Papers 29739, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Schmidpeter, Bernhard, 2023. "Labor Market News and Expectations about Jobs & Earnings," IZA Discussion Papers 16524, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Bernhard Schmidpeter, 2023. "Labor Market News and Expectations about Jobs & Earnings," Economics working papers 2023-14, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    3. Nikitas Konstantinidis & Konstantinos Matakos & Hande Mutlu-Eren, 2019. "“Take back control”? The effects of supranational integration on party-system polarization," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 297-333, June.
    4. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    5. Jinglong Zhao, 2024. "Experimental Design For Causal Inference Through An Optimization Lens," Papers 2408.09607, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    6. Damian Clarke & Daniel Paila~nir & Susan Athey & Guido Imbens, 2023. "Synthetic Difference In Differences Estimation," Papers 2301.11859, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2023.
    7. Billy Ferguson & Brad Ross, 2020. "Assessing the Sensitivity of Synthetic Control Treatment Effect Estimates to Misspecification Error," Papers 2012.15367, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2021.
    8. Dmitry Arkhangelsky & Guido Imbens, 2023. "Causal Models for Longitudinal and Panel Data: A Survey," Papers 2311.15458, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    9. Roth, Jonathan & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Bilinski, Alyssa & Poe, John, 2023. "What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2218-2244.
    10. Kyunghoon Ban & D'esir'e K'edagni, 2022. "Robust Difference-in-differences Models," Papers 2211.06710, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    11. Mechoulan, Stéphane, 2020. "Civil unrest, emergency powers, and spillover effects: A mixed methods analysis of the 2005 French riots," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 305-326.
    12. Campos, Nauro F. & De Grauwe, Paul & Ji, Yuemei, 2023. "Structural reforms and economic performance: the experience of advanced economies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120870, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Jiafeng Chen, 2022. "Synthetic Control As Online Linear Regression," Papers 2202.08426, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.
    14. Michael Pollmann, 2020. "Causal Inference for Spatial Treatments," Papers 2011.00373, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2023.
    15. Philip Marx & Elie Tamer & Xun Tang, 2022. "Parallel Trends and Dynamic Choices," Papers 2207.06564, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    16. Castro, P. & Pedroso, R. & Lautenbach, S. & Vicens, R., 2020. "Farmland abandonment in Rio de Janeiro: Underlying and contributory causes of an announced development," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    17. Qiuyue Xia & Lu Li & Jie Dong & Bin Zhang, 2021. "Reduction Effect and Mechanism Analysis of Carbon Trading Policy on Carbon Emissions from Land Use," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-22, August.
    18. Dani Rodrik, 2018. "Populism and the economics of globalization," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 1(1), pages 12-33, June.
    19. Echevarría, Cruz A. & Hasancebi, Serhat & García-Enríquez, Javier, 2022. "Economic Effects of Macao’s Integration with Mainland China: A Causal Inference Study," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 37(2), pages 179-215.
    20. Nicolaj N. Mühlbach, 2020. "Tree-based Synthetic Control Methods: Consequences of moving the US Embassy," CREATES Research Papers 2020-04, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Beliefs formation; wage expectations; outside options; consumption;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • 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
    • 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:zbw:rwirep:279546. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rwiesde.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.