Task assignment over the business cycle

Paul Devereux

Open Access publications from School of Economics, University College Dublin

Abstract: In this article, I evaluate the hypothesis that firms respond to negative demand shocks by assigning workers to tasks that require less skill than the tasks they normally carry out. Using changes in employment in state-industry cells as a measure of demand conditions facing individual firms, I provide evidence in favor of the hypothesis. Furthermore, the skill requirements of the tasks carried out by workers are procyclical. The results are consistent with a specific capital model where employers move workers between tasks so that layoffs are concentrated on workers with low levels of firm-specific human capital.

Keywords: Business cycles; Human capital; Personnel management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2000
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

Published in: Journal of Labor Economics, 18(1) 2000

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http://hdl.handle.net/10197/313 Open Access version, 2000 (application/pdf)

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Journal Article: Task Assignment over the Business Cycle (2000)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucn:oapubs:10197/313

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