Search Results

(refine search)

SORT BY: PREVIOUS / NEXT

All:
Title:
Author:
Abstract:
Keywords:

+ Add Search Parameter

Working Paper
Which industries are shifting the Beveridge curve?
Sahin, Aysegul; Hobijn, Bart; Barnichon, Regis (2010)
The negative relationship between the unemployment rate and the job openings rate, known as the Beveridge curve, has been relatively stable in the U.S. over the last decade. Since the summer of 2009, however, the U.S. unemployment rate has hovered between 9.4 and 10.1 percent in spite of firms reporting more job openings. We decompose the recent deviation from the Beveridge curve into different parts using data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). We find that most of the current deviation from the Beveridge curve can be attributed to a shortfall in the vacancy yield, ...
Working Paper Series , Paper 2010-32

Report
On both sides of the quality bias in price indexes
Hobijn, Bart (2002)
It is often argued that price indexes do not fully capture the quality improvements of new goods in the market. Because of this shortcoming, price indexes are perceived to overestimate the actual price increases that occur. In this paper, I argue that the quality bias in price indexes is just as likely to be upward as it is to be downward. I show how both the sign and the magnitude of the quality bias in the most commonly applied price index methods are determined by the cross-sectional variation of prices per quality unit across the product models sold in the market. ; I do so by simulating ...
Staff Reports , Paper 157

Journal Article
Jobless recovery redux?
Hobijn, Bart; Kwok, Joyce; Daly, Mary C. (2009)
Although the pace of layoffs appears to be subsiding and the overall economy is showing hints of stabilization, most forecasters expect unemployment to continue to increase in coming months and to recede only gradually as recovery takes hold. In this Economic Letter, we evaluate this projection using data on three labor market indicators: worker flows into and out of unemployment; involuntary part-time employment; and temporary layoffs. We pay particular attention to how these indicators compare with data from previous episodes of recession and recovery. Our analysis generally supports ...
FRBSF Economic Letter

Journal Article
The stimulative effect of redistribution
Nussbacher, Alexander; Hobijn, Bart (2015)
Policymakers often consider temporarily redistributing income from rich to poor households to stimulate the economy. This is based in part on the idea that poor households spend a larger share of their income than rich ones do. However, ample evidence suggests that the difference in spending between these groups is significantly smaller than commonly assumed. A second assumption is that redistribution through policy is more efficient than through capital markets. Whether this is true is important to consider when proposing this type of stimulus policy.
FRBSF Economic Letter

Journal Article
“Great Resignations” Are Common During Fast Recoveries
Hobijn, Bart (2022-04-04)
The record percentage of workers who are quitting their jobs, known as the “Great Resignation,” is not a shift in worker attitudes in the wake of the pandemic. Evidence on which workers are quitting suggests that it reflects the strong rebound of the demand for younger and less-educated workers. Historical data on quits in manufacturing suggest that the current wave is not unusual. Waves of job quits have occurred during all fast recoveries in the postwar period.
FRBSF Economic Letter , Volume 2022 , Issue 08 , Pages 06

Journal Article
Recent college graduates and the labor market
Hobijn, Bart; Gardiner, Colin; Wiles, Theodore S. (2011)
In the recent recession and recovery, the unemployment rates, part-time employment trends, and earnings growth of recent college graduates have closely mirrored the patterns they displayed during the cyclical recession of 2001 and the subsequent jobless recovery. Recent college graduates are typically not subject to structural frictions that can contribute to weak labor markets, such as mismatches between the skills of job seekers and the needs of employers. Similarities in the labor market experiences of recent college graduates in the two recessions and recoveries suggest that the current ...
FRBSF Economic Letter

Working Paper
The recent evolution of the natural rate of unemployment
Hobijn, Bart; Valletta, Robert G.; Daly, Mary C. (2011)
The U.S. economy is recovering from the financial crisis and ensuing deep recession, but the unemployment rate has remained stubbornly high. Some have argued that the persistent elevation of unemployment relative to historical norms reflects the fact that the shocks that hit the economy were especially disruptive to labor markets and likely to have long lasting effects. If such structural factors are at work they would result in a higher underlying natural or nonaccelerating inflation rate of unemployment, implying that conventional monetary and fiscal policy should not be used in an attempt ...
Working Paper Series , Paper 2011-05

Working Paper
On the Importance of the Participation Margin for Market Fluctuations
Sahin, Aysegul; Hobijn, Bart; Elsby, Michael (2013-02-25)
Conventional analyses of cyclical fluctuations in the labor market ascribe a minor role to the labor force participation margin. In contrast, a flows-based decomposition of the variation in labor market stocks reveals that transitions at the participation margin account for around one-third of the cyclical variation in the unemployment rate. This result is robust to adjustments of data for spurious transitions, and for time aggregation. Inferences from conventional, stocks-based analyses of labor force participation are shown to be subject to a stock-flow fallacy, neglecting the offsetting ...
Working Paper Series , Paper 2013-05

Report
Firms and flexibility
Sahin, Aysegul; Hobijn, Bart (2007)
We study the effects of labor market rigidities and frictions on firm-size distributions and dynamics. We introduce a model of endogenous entrepreneurship, labor market frictions, and firm-size dynamics with many types of rigidities, such as hiring and firing costs, search frictions with vacancy costs, unemployment benefits, firm entry costs, and a tax wedge between wages and labor costs. We use the model to analyze how each rigidity explains firm-size differentials between the United States and France. We find that when we include all rigidities and frictions except hiring costs and search ...
Staff Reports , Paper 311

Journal Article
Okun’s law and the unemployment surprise of 2009
Hobijn, Bart; Daly, Mary C. (2010)
In 2009, strong growth in productivity allowed firms to lay off large numbers of workers while holding output relatively steady. This behavior threw a wrench into the long-standing relationship between changes in GDP and changes in the unemployment rate, known as Okun?s law. If Okun?s law had held in 2009, the unemployment rate would have risen by about half as much as it did over the course of the year.
FRBSF Economic Letter

show more (30)

PREVIOUS / NEXT

Fed in Print

Search Results

FILTER BY year

FILTER BY Bank

FILTER BY Series

FILTER BY Content Type

FILTER BY Author

FILTER BY Jel Classification

FILTER BY Keywords