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Worker Reallocation Across Occupations: Confronting Data with Theory

Etienne Lalé (elale@yorku.ca)

Bristol Economics Discussion Papers from School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK

Abstract: This paper studies the secular behavior of worker reallocation across occupations in the U.S. labor market. In the empirical analysis, we use microdata to construct consistent time series over a forty-five year period, and document that the fraction of employment reallocated annually across occupations is highly stable in the long run. We go beyond description and use an equilibrium model to identify potential changes in the productivity shocks and mobility costs that govern worker reallocation across occupations. We uncover the joint evolution of these factors by deriving a simple mapping between data and the model. Our analysis shows that constant reallocation rates across occupations mask slow-moving increases in the volatility of productivity shocks since the mid-1980s, and a pronounced upward shift in the cost of switching occupations in the period surrounding the Great Recession.

Keywords: Occupations; Reallocation; Wages; Equilibrium Search. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J21 J31 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2015-05-05, Revised 2016-10-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-lab and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Journal Article: Worker reallocation across occupations: Confronting data with theory (2017) Downloads
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bri:uobdis:15/657

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