TY  - JOUR
AU  - Mulligan,Casey B.
TI  - Rising Labor Productivity during the 2008-9 Recession
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17584
PY  - 2011
Y2  - November 2011
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17584
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17584.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Casey B. Mulligan
University of Chicago
Department of Economics
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL  60637
Tel: 773/702-9017
Fax: 773/702-8490
E-Mail: c-mulligan@uchicago.edu
AB  - During the recession of 2008-9, labor hours fell sharply, while wages and output per hour rose.  Some, but not all, of the productivity and wage increase can be attributed to changing quality of the workforce.  The rest of the increase appears to be due to increases in production inputs other than labor hours.  All of these findings, plus the drop in consumer expenditure, are consistent with the hypothesis that labor market “distortions” were increasing during the recession and have remained in place during the slow “recovery.”  Producers appear to be trying to continue production with less labor, rather than cutting labor hours as a means of cutting output.
ER  -