The Rise of Part-time Employment

We construct new monthly time series of U.S. labor market stocks and flows from 1976 onwards. These data reveal an upward secular trend in turnover between full-time and part-time employment, and a large cyclical component chiefly explained by fluctuations in involuntary part-time work. Both short-run and long-run reallocations occur mostly without an intervening spell of non-employment, and therefore cannot be uncovered without splitting employment into finer categories. We emphasize the importance of our findings for several active debates, such as the slowdown in U.S. labor-market dynamism, changes in job stability and security, and the assessment of labor-market slack

Employment Adjustment and Part-time Jobs: The U.S. and the U.K. in the Great Recession

We document that fluctuations in part-time employment play a major role in movements in hours per worker, especially during cyclical swings in the labor market. Building on this result, we propose a novel representation of the intensive margin based on a stock-flow framework. The evolution of part-time employment is predominantly explained by cyclical changes in transitions between full-time and part-time employment, which occur overwhelmingly at the same employer and entail large changes in individuals' working hours. We discuss implications for a large class of macroeconomic models that map individual decisions along the extensive/intensive margins onto aggregate labor market outcomes

Accounting For Endogenous Search Behavior in Matching Function Estimation

We show that equilibrium matching models imply that standard estimates of the matching function elasticities are exposed to an endogeneity bias, which arises from the search behavior of agents on either side of the market. We offer an estimation method which, under certain assumptions, is immune from that bias. Application of our method to the estimation of a basic version of the matching function using aggregate U.S. data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) suggests that the bias is quantitatively important.matching function estimation, unemployment, vacancies, job finding

The Welfare Effects of Involuntary Part-Time Work

Employed individuals in the U.S. are increasingly more likely to work part-time involuntarily than to be unemployed. Spells of involuntary part-time work are different from unemployment spells: a full-time worker who takes on a part-time job suffers an earnings loss while remaining employed, and is unlikely to receive income compensation from publicly-provided insurance programs.We analyze these differences through the lens of an incomplete-market, job-search model featuring unemployment risk alongside an additional risk of involuntary part-time employment.A calibration of the model consistent with U.S. institutions and labor-market dynamics shows that involuntary part-time work generates lower welfare losses relative to unemployment. This finding relies critically on the much higher probability to return to full-time employment from part-time work. We interpret it as a premium in access to full-time work faced by involuntary part-time workers, and use our model to tabulate its value in consumption-equivalent units

Accounting for endogenous search behavior in matching function estimation

We show that equilibrium matching models imply that standard estimates of the matching function elasticities are exposed to an endogeneity bias, which arises from the search behavior of agents on either side of the market. We offer an estimation method which, under certain assumptions, is immune from that bias. Application of our method to the estimation of a basic version of the matching function using aggregate U.S. data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) suggests that the bias is quantitatively important

The Ins and Outs of Involuntary Part-time Employment

We develop an adjustment procedure to construct U.S. monthly time series of involuntary part-time employment stocks and flows from 1976 until today. Armed with these new data, we provide a comprehensive account of the dynamics of involuntary part-time work. Transitions from full-time to involuntary part-time employment dominate this dynamics, spiking up at recessions’ onsets and persisting well into recovery periods. On the other hand, weaknesses in job creation contribute little to these fluctuations. Our data and findings are relevant to inform a broader assessment of labor market performance and to develop models of cyclical labor adjustment

Accounting for Endogeneity in Matching Function Estimation

We show that equilibrium matching models imply that standard estimates of the matching function elasticities are exposed to an endogeneity bias, which arises from the search behavior of agents on either side of the market. We offer an estimation method which, under certain structural assumptions about the process driving shocks to matching efficiency, is immune from that bias. Application of our method to the estimation of a basic version of the matching function using aggregate U.S. data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) suggests that the bias can be quantitatively important

Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: employment and wage differentials by skill

In the U.S. the average black worker has a lower employment rate and earns a lower wage compared to his white counterpart. Lang and Lehmann (2012) argue that black-white wage and employment gaps are smaller for high-skill workers. We show that a model combining employer taste-based discrimination, search frictions and skill complementarities can replicate these regularities, and estimate it using data from the U.S. manufacturing sector. We find that discrimination is quantitatively important to understand differences in wages and job finding rates across workers with low education levels, whereas skill differences are the main driver of those differences among workers with high education levels

Why does part-time employment increase in recessions?

The share of workers employed part-time increases substantially in economic downturns. How should this phenomenon be interpreted? One hypothesis is that part-time jobs are more prevalent in sectors that are less sensitive to the business cycle, so that recessionary changes in the sectoral composition of employment explain the increase in part-time employment. The evidence shows, however, that this hypothesis only accounts for a small part of the story. Instead, the growth of part-time work operates mainly through reductions in working hours in existing jobs

A provisão de serviços públicos de resolução judicial de litígios: análise económica do sistema judicial português

Mestrado em Economia e Políticas PúblicasNeste trabalho estuda-se a oferta do sistema judicial português a partir dos conceitos e instrumentos da teoria económica. Para esse efeito, apresenta-se um modelo econométrico da provisão de serviços judiciais pelos tribunais de 1.ª instância que utiliza uma medida indirecta da eficiência produtiva dos tribunais (uma medida quantitativa da produtividade judicial), e que controla parcialmente a heterogeneidade do perfil de litigância resolvida (case mix) através da criação de grupos homogéneos de tribunais quanto ao case mix. O modelo apresentado permite testar um conjunto de hipóteses teóricas sobre os factores tecnológicos e de contexto que condicionam a produtividade judicial dos tribunais e, também, explorar hipóteses explicativas das relações estatísticas estabelecidas entre a medida de produtividade judicial e os factores cujo efeito não é previsível por nenhuma teoria particular. Os resultados obtidos permitem concluir que a produtividade judicial é endógena e que factores exteriores ao controlo do tribunal explicam parte dos diferenciais de produtividade judicial observados. O trabalho conclui com um conjunto de recomendações de política pública derivado dos resultados obtidos e das análises efectuadas.We study the supply of judicial services from the point of view of economic theory and apply regression analysis techniques to a cross-sectional sample of Portuguese First Instance Courts. First, we present an econometric model of the production of judicial services, which proxies the productive efficiency of Portuguese First Instance Courts by a quantitative measure of judicial productivity. In order to control for the heterogeneity in court’s case mix, we create three clusters of courts based on case mix homogeneity. Next, we use the econometric model to test hypothesis on both the technological and external factors that affect judicial productivity and to explore causal relationships for which no reasonable theoretical prediction was available. Our results indicate that the productivity of courts is endogenous and that external factors are important to explain the observed differences in courts’ productivity. Finally, we draw a set of public policy recommendations from our analysis and results