American Economic Review Vol. 107 No. 12 2017
Recall and Unemployment
Abstract
We document in the Survey of Income and Program Participation covering the period 1990–2013 that a surprisingly large share of workers return to their previous employer after a jobless spell, and experience very different unemployment and employment outcomes than job switchers. The probability of recall is much less procyclical and volatile than the probability of finding a new employer. We add to a quantitative, and otherwise canonical, search-and-matching model of the labor market a recall option, which can be activated freely following aggregate and job-specific productivity shocks. Recall and search effort significantly amplify the cyclical volatility of new job-finding and separation probabilities.
- DOI
- 10.1257/aer.20131496
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 3875-3916
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref