Volatility, labor heterogeneity and asset prices

Juan Ochoa ()

No 2013-71, Finance and Economics Discussion Series from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.)

Abstract: This paper shows that a firm's reliance on skilled labor is an underlying determinant of its exposure to aggregate volatility risk. I present a model in which firms make hiring and firing decisions in an environment of time-varying aggregate volatility, and face linear adjustment costs that increase with the skill of a worker. In the model, an increase in aggregate volatility slows a firm's labor demand reaction to changes in economic conditions, reducing its ability to smooth cash flows. The rise in aggregate volatility has a more pronounced impact on firms with a high share of skilled labor because their labor is more costly to adjust. Therefore, the compensation for volatility risk and its contribution to risk compensation increases with a firm's reliance on skilled labor. I empirically test the implications of the model using occupational estimates to construct a measure of a firm's reliance on skilled labor, and find a positive and statistically significant cross-sectional relation between the reliance on skilled labor and expected returns. In times of high aggregate volatility, firms with a high share of skilled workers earn an annual return of 2.7% above those with a high share of unskilled workers. This spread reduces by one third in times when volatility is back to normal.

Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2013/201371/201371abs.html (text/html)
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2013/201371/201371pap.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:fip:fedgfe:2013-71

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Finance and Economics Discussion Series from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier ().