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Report
Replacement hiring and the productivity-wage gap
A large and growing share of hires in the United States are replacement hires. This increase coincides with a growing productivity-wage gap. We connect these trends by building a model where firms post long-lived vacancies and engage in on-the-job search for more productive workers. These features improve a firm's bargaining position while raising workers' job insecurity and the wedge between hiring and meeting rates. All three channels lower wages while raising productivity. Quantitatively, increased replacement hiring explains half the increase in the productivity-wage gap. The socially ...
Discussion Paper
Escaping Unemployment Traps
Economic activity has remained subdued following the Great Recession. One interpretation of the listless recovery is that recessions inflict permanent damage on an economy’s productive capacity. For example, extended periods of high unemployment can lead to skill losses among workers, reducing human capital and lowering future output. This notion that temporary recessions have long-lasting consequences is often termed hysteresis. Another explanation for sluggish growth is the influential secular stagnation hypothesis, which attributes slow growth to long-term changes in the economy’s ...
Working Paper
Job Applications and Labor Market Flows
Job applications have risen over time, yet job-finding rates remain unchanged. Meanwhile, separations have declined. We argue that increased applications raise the probability of a good match rather than the probability of job-finding. Using a search model with multiple applications and costly information, we show that when applications increase, firms invest in identifying good matches, reducing separations. Concurrently, increased congestion and selectivity over which offer to accept temper increases in job-finding rates. Our framework contains testable implications for changes in offers, ...
Working Paper
Job Applications and Labor Market Flows
Job applications have risen over time yet job-finding rates remain unchanged. Meanwhile, separations have declined. We argue that increased applications raise the probability of a good match rather than the probability of job-finding. Using a search model with multiple applications and costly information, we show that when applications increase, firms invest in identifying good matches, reducing separations. Concurrently, increased congestion and selectivity over which offer to accept temper increases in job-finding rates. Our framework contains testable implications for changes in offers, ...
Journal Article
The Evolution of Job Applications and Job-Finding Rates since the 1980s
The number of monthly job applications has increased since the 1980s, but the job-finding rates have not.
Working Paper
Job Applications and Labor Market Flows
Job applications have risen over time yet job-finding rates remain unchanged. Meanwhile, separations have declined. We argue that increased applications raise the probability of a good match rather than the probability of job-finding. Using a search model with multiple applications and costly information, we show that when applications increase, firms invest in identifying good matches, reducing separations. Concurrently, increased congestion and selectivity over which offer to accept temper increases in job-finding rates. Our framework contains testable implications for changes in offers, ...
Working Paper
Job Applications and Labor Market Flows
Unemployment inflows have declined sharply since the 1980s while unemployment outflows have remained mostly steady despite a rise in workers' applications over time. Using a random search model of multiple applications with costly information, we show how rising applications incentivize more firms to acquire information, improving the realized distribution of match qualities. Higher concentrations of high productivity matches reduce the incidence of endogenous separations, causing unemployment inflow rates to fall. Quantitatively, our model replicates the relative change in inflow and outflow ...
Working Paper
Job Applications and Labor Market Flows
Improvements in search technology have led to an increase in worker applications over time. Concomitantly, unemployment inflow rates have declined sharply, with no long-run change in job-finding rates. To explain these trends, we introduce a search model with multiple applications and costly information acquisition. When workers send more applications, the model predicts that firms invest more in finding good matches, leading to fewer separations, while workers become choosier about which offers they accept, mitigating the rise in job-finding rates. Quantitatively, the model replicates the ...
Working Paper
Job Applications and Labor Market Flows
Job applications have risen over time yet job-finding rates remain unchanged. Meanwhile, separations have declined. We argue that increased applications raise the probability of a good match rather than the probability of job-finding. Using a search model with multiple applications and costly information, we show that when applications increase, firms invest in identifying good matches, reducing separations. Concurrently, increased congestion and selectivity over which offer to accept temper increases in job-finding rates. Our framework contains testable implications for changes in offers, ...
Report
Rational inattention in hiring decisions
We provide an information-based theory of matching efficiency fluctuations. Rationally inattentive firms have limited capacity to process information and cannot perfectly identify suitable applicants. During recessions, higher losses from hiring unsuitable workers cause firms to be more selective in hiring. When firms cannot obtain sufficient information about applicants, they err on the side of caution and accept fewer applicants to minimize losses from hiring unsuitable workers. Pro-cyclical acceptance rates drive a wedge between meeting and hiring rates, explaining fluctuations in matching ...