Studies in Labor Mobility and Unemployment

经济学中的一个主要难题是，为什么现在的均衡失业率比20年前高得多。例如，就处于黄金工作年龄的男性而言，1980年代初和中期的失业率是1960年代这一群体所经历的失业率的三倍多。其他群体的均衡失业率也出现了类似的增长。在以前的资助下，作者描述了这一时期失业演变的许多关键特征，这使他们拒绝接受现有的失业理论，因为它们与事实不符。研究发现，这一时期失业率的上升与失业时间的延长和劳动力部门流动性的下降有关。此外，失业对壮年工人人口的影响要大得多。作者将利用关于个人失业和失业持续时间的各种微观数据来源，将这一早期的实证工作扩展到对个人层面失业动态的更彻底的研究，包括流动性的关键作用。将开发并测试一个优化模型，该模型强调特定技能和工人专业化的重要性，以及经过专门培训的工人的最佳个人流动决策。现有的劳动力市场理论不能充分解释过去20年左右观察到的均衡失业率的长期增长。这个项目将开发和测试一个理论框架来做到这一点。希望本研究的结果可以提供降低长期均衡失业率和失业持续时间的方法。

A major puzzle in economics is why the equilibrium rate of unemployment is much higher now than it was twenty years ago. For example, in the case of men in their prime working years, the unemployment rates of the early and mid 1980s were more than triple the rates experienced by this group in the 1960s. Other groups show similar increase in their equilibrium rates of unemployment. Under the previous grant, the authors characterized many of the key features of the evolution of unemployment over this period, which caused them to reject existing theories of unemployment because they were inconsistent with the facts. It was found that rising unemployment over this period was associated with much longer periods of unemployment and declining sectoral mobility of the labor force. In addition, unemployment cut much more deeply into the population of prime aged workers. Using various sources of micro data on individual unemployment and unemployment duration, the authors will extent this earlier empirical work to a more thorough study of unemployment dynamics at the individual level, including the key role of mobility. An optimizing model will be developed and tested which emphasizes the importance of specific skills and specialization of workers, along with optimal individual mobility decisions by specifically trained workers. Existing theories of labor markets cannot adequately explain the secular increase in equilibrium unemployment rates observed over the past twenty years or so. This project will develop and test a theoretical framework for doing just that. It is hoped that the results of this study may suggest ways of reducing the long-term equilibrium rate of unemployment, and the duration of unemployment spells.