Authors:

  • Christopher Foote

Excerpt

Labor-Market Polarization Over the Business Cycle. Christopher Foote, December 6, 2012, Paper. "During the last few decades, labor markets in advanced economies have become “polarized” as relative labor demand grows for high- and low-skill workers while it declines for middle-skill workers. This paper explores how polarization has interacted with the U.S. business cycle since the late 1970s. Consistent with previous work, the authors find that recessions are strongly synchronized across workers with different skills. Even high-skill workers favored by polarization suffer during recessions; this is particularly true during the last two downturns..."  Link