Aggregate hours worked in OECD countries: New measurement and implications for business cycles

Lee Ohanian and Andrea Raffo

Journal of Monetary Economics, 2012, vol. 59, issue 1, 40-56

Abstract: We build a dataset of quarterly hours worked for 14 OECD countries. We document that hours are as volatile as output, that a large fraction of labor adjustment takes place along the intensive margin, and that the volatility of hours relative to output has increased over time. We use these data to reassess the Great Recession and prior recessions. The Great Recession in many countries is a puzzle in that labor wedges are small, while those in the U.S. Great Recession – and those in previous European recessions – are much larger.

Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (177)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393211001139
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Aggregate hours worked in OECD countries: new measurement and implications for business cycles (2011)
Working Paper: Aggregate Hours Worked in OECD Countries: New Measurement and Implications for Business Cycles (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:moneco:v:59:y:2012:i:1:p:40-56

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2011.11.005

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Monetary Economics is currently edited by R. G. King and C. I. Plosser

More articles in Journal of Monetary Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().