Earnings Losses and Labor Mobility Over the Life Cycle

Philip Jung () and Moritz Kuhn

No 6552, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Large and persistent earnings losses following displacement have adverse consequences for the individual worker and the macroeconomy. Leading models cannot explain their size and disagree on their sources. Two mean-reverting forces make earnings losses transitory in these models: search as an upward force allows workers to climb back up the job ladder, and separations as a downward force make nondisplaced workers fall down the job ladder. We show that job stability at the top rather than search frictions at the bottom is the main driver of persistent earnings losses. We provide new empirical evidence on heterogeneity in job stability and develop a life-cycle search model to explain the facts. Our model offers a quantitative reconciliation of key stylized facts about the U.S. labor market: large worker flows, a large share of stable jobs, and persistent earnings shocks. We explain the size of earnings losses by dampening the downward force. Our new explanation highlights the tight link between labor market mobility and earnings dynamics. Regarding the sources, we find that over 85% stem from the loss of a particularly good job at the top of the job ladder. We apply the model to study the effectiveness of two labor market policies, retraining and placement support, from the Dislocated Worker Program. We find that both are ineffective in reducing earnings losses in line with the program evaluation literature.

Keywords: life-cycle labor market mobility; job tenure; earnings losses; worker- and match-specific skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J63 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Earnings Losses and Labor Mobility Over the Life Cycle (2019)
Working Paper: Earnings losses and labor mobility over the lifecycle (2016)
Working Paper: Earnings losses and labor mobility over the lifecycle (2013)
Working Paper: Earnings Losses and Labor Mobility over the Lifecycle (2012)
Working Paper: Earnings losses and labor mobility over the life-cycle (2012)
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