Why Are The Wages of Job Stayers Procyclical?

This paper explains how real wages are procyclical for those who stay with the same employer. On the basis of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data for the period of 1974-75 to 1990-91, we find that the substantial wage procyclicality among job stayers is mostly accounted for by great wage adjustments during the period when the unemployment rate reaches a historical minimum level from the start of the employee's current job. This finding explains how the real wages of job stayers behave asymmetrically over the cycle and more importantly how the evidence of stayers' great wage procyclicality accords with the theoretical prediction of implicit contracts that stresses costless mobility.

Measuring Social Unrest Based on Income Distribution

This paper develops a social unrest measure by revising Esteban-Ray (1994, Econometrica) polarization index. For the purpose of measuring more effectively the level of social unrest that is generated by separation of income classes, the new index allows for asymmetry between the rich and the poor groups' alienation feeling against the other, and it constructs a more effective group identification function. To facilitate statistical inferences, asymptotic distribution of the proposed measure is also derived using results from U-statistics, and an easy-to-implement jackknife-based variance estimation algorithm is obtained. Since the new index is general enough to include the Esteban-Ray index and the Gini index for group data as special cases, the asymptotic results can be readily applied to these popular indices. Evidence based on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data suggests that the level of social unrest has generally increased over the sample period of 1981-2005, particular since the late 1990's, and the increase is statistically significant

Trends in Men's Earnings Volatility: What Does the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Show?

Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics data for 1969 through 2004, we examine movements in men's earnings volatility. Like many previous studies, we find that earnings volatility is substantially countercyclical. As for secular trends, we find that men's earnings volatility increased during the 1970s, but did not show a clear trend afterwards until a new upward trend appeared in the last few years. These patterns are broadly consistent with the findings of recent studies based on other data sets.

Cyclicality of real wages among young men

This paper analyzes the cyclical behavior of real wages received by the young men in the National Longitudinal Surveys of labor market experience. It extends the studies by Bils (Journal of Political Economy, 1985, 93, 666-689) and Tremblay (Quarterly Review of Economics and Business, 1990, 30, 90-101) by using the full duration of the survey and by examining differences in wage cyclicality across industries and between workers that change employers and those that stay with the same employer.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31280/1/0000186.pd