12월 7일(금) 경제사 워크숍 안내

12월 7일(금) 경제사 워크숍이 다음과 같이 열릴 예정입니다.
올해 마지막 워크숍에 많은 분들의 참석을 바랍니다.

- 일 시 : 12월 7일(금) 16:30 - 18:00
- 장 소 : 서울대학교 사회과학대학 6층 경제학부 세미나실 (16동 655호)
- 발표자 : 이 웅 (KIEP)
- 제 목 : "Why did quit rates decline in the 1920s? The role of labor demand revisited"

* 발표문은 당일에 나누어 드리며, 아래의 Abstract를 참고하시기 바랍니다.

Abstract

This paper revisits the debate on the decline in the U.S. manufacturing sector’s quit rate in the 1920s. Instead of an index of employment in the manufacturing sector or unemployment rate, commonly used labor market indicators, this paper uses a measure of the labor market tightness for the manufacturing sector, defined as the ratio of the number of job vacancies to the number of job-seekers, as a proxy for the cyclicality of the labor market. The Help Wanted Advertising Index, an indicator of labor demand and the business cycle, is also utilized. The results contradict a common view in the economic history literature. Trends of the labor market tightness and the Help Wanted Advertising Index show the same pattern as the movement of the quit rate, including a sharp drop in 1923. It is the only quantitative evidence to capture a substantial decline in the quit rate starting in the middle of 1923. In regression analysis, once the manufacturing sector’s labor market tightness or the Help Wanted Advertising Index is used, the labor market conditions yield a satisfying and sufficient explanation of the decline in the quit rate. This result suggests a more limited role than was traditionally assumed for factors that contributed to lower quit rates such as changes in employment policies in favor of workers in this period.