TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bils,Mark
AU  - Chang,Yongsung
AU  - Kim,Sun-Bin
TI  - Comparative Advantage and Unemployment
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15030
PY  - 2009
Y2  - June 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15030
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15030.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Mark Bils
Department of Economics
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627
Tel: 585/275-0488
Fax: 585/256-2309
E-Mail: bils@troi.cc.rochester.edu

Yongsung Chang
Department of Economics
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627
Tel: 1-585-275-1871
Fax: 1-585-256-2309
E-Mail: ychang14@mail.rochester.edu

Sun-Bin Kim
Department of Economics
Yonsei University
134 Shinchon-dong Seodaemoon-gu
Seoul Korea, 120-749
Tel: 82-2-2123-2467
E-Mail: sunbin.kim@yonsei.ac.kr
AB  - We model unemployment allowing workers to differ by comparative advantage in market work. Workers with comparative advantage are identified by who works more hours when employed. This enables us to test the model by grouping workers based on their long-term wages and hours from panel data. The model captures the greater cyclicality of employment for workers with low comparative advantage. But the model fails to explain the magnitude of countercyclical separations for high-wage workers or the magnitude of procyclical findings for high-hours workers. As a result, it only captures the cyclicality of the extensive, employment margin for low-wage, low-hours workers.
ER  -