American Economic Journal:
Macroeconomics
ISSN 1945-7707 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7715 (Online)
Employment Adjustment and Part-Time Work: Lessons from the United States and the United Kingdom
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
vol. 11,
no. 1, January 2019
(pp. 389–435)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
We document that fluctuations in part-time employment play a major role in movements in hours per worker during cyclical swings in the labor market. Building on this result, we develop a stock-flow framework to describe the dynamics of part-time employment. The evolution of part-time employment is predominantly explained by cyclical changes in transitions between full-time and part-time employment. Those transitions occur overwhelmingly at the same employer, entail sizable changes in individual working hours and are associated with an increase in involuntary part-time work. Our findings provide a novel understanding of the cyclical dynamics of labor adjustment on the intensive margin.Citation
Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel, and Etienne Lalé. 2019. "Employment Adjustment and Part-Time Work: Lessons from the United States and the United Kingdom." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 11 (1): 389–435. DOI: 10.1257/mac.20160078Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- E24 Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
- E32 Business Fluctuations; Cycles
- J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
- J23 Labor Demand