The cost of human capital depreciation during unemployment

Laureys, Lien (2014) The cost of human capital depreciation during unemployment. CFM discussion paper series (CFM-DP2014-20). Centre For Macroeconomics, London, UK.

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Abstract

Skill erosion during unemployment was of particular concern as unemployment duration increased in the Great Recession. I argue that it generates an externality in job creation: firms ignore how their hiring decisions affect the unemployment pool’s skill composition, and hence the expected output produced by new hires. As a consequence, job creation is too low from a social point of view. But the extent to which it is too low varies over the cycle. This is because the externality’s magnitude, which depends on the impact of job creation on the pool’s skill composition, reduces when the share of unemployed workers who already have eroded skills increases.

Item Type:	Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Official URL:	http://www.centreformacroeconomics.ac.uk/Home.aspx
Additional Information:	© 2014 The Authors
Divisions:	Centre for Macroeconomics
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
JEL classification:	E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment > E24 - Macroeconomics: Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution (includes wage indexation) J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Time Allocation, Work Behavior, and Employment Determination and Creation; Human Capital; Retirement > J24 - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J4 - Particular Labor Markets > J41 - Contracts: Specific Human Capital, Matching Models, Efficiency Wage Models, and Internal Labor Markets J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies > J64 - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
Date Deposited:	15 Dec 2017 09:24
Last Modified:	15 Sep 2023 23:35
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/86337

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