Comparative Advantage and Unemployment / Mark Bils, Yongsung Chang, Sun-Bin Kim.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bils, Mark.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Chang, Yongsung.

Kim, Sun-Bin.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w15030.

NBER working paper series no. w15030

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2009.

Summary:

We model unemployment allowing workers to differ by comparative advantage in market work. Workers with comparative advantage are identified by who works more hours when employed. This enables us to test the model by grouping workers based on their long-term wages and hours from panel data. The model captures the greater cyclicality of employment for workers with low comparative advantage. But the model fails to explain the magnitude of countercyclical separations for high-wage workers or the magnitude of procyclical findings for high-hours workers. As a result, it only captures the cyclicality of the extensive, employment margin for low-wage, low-hours workers.

Notes:

Print version record

June 2009.