Changes in Hours Fluctuations since the Mid-1980s: What Happened to Middle-Skilled Workers?

31 Pages Posted: 10 Sep 2013 Last revised: 26 Feb 2019

See all articles by Myungkyu Shim

Myungkyu Shim

Yonsei University - School of Economics

Hee-Seung Yang

Yonsei University

Date Written: January 6, 2015

Abstract

We find that changes in hours volatilities since the mid-1980s are non-monotonic in skill levels: the standard deviation of detrended total hours of “middle-skilled” workers has substantially dropped, while that of “low-skilled” and “high-skilled” workers has slightly changed, which is robust to the different definitions of skill. We then use an analytically tractable dynamic firm model to show that these non-monotonic changes are driven by jobless recoveries that are observed only for middle-skilled workers since the mid-1980s.

Keywords: Non-monotonic changes in hours volatility, Middle-skilled worker, Jobless recovery

JEL Classification: E24, E32

Suggested Citation

Shim, Myungkyu and Yang, Hee-Seung, Changes in Hours Fluctuations since the Mid-1980s: What Happened to Middle-Skilled Workers? (January 6, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2322690 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2322690

Myungkyu Shim

Yonsei University - School of Economics ( email )

Seoul
Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

Hee-Seung Yang (Contact Author)

Yonsei University ( email )

50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu
Seoul, 03722
Korea, Republic of (South Korea)
82 2 2123 2480 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://sites.google.com/site/heeseungyang/

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