TY  - JOUR
AU  - Foote,Christopher L.
TI  - The Surprising Symmetry of Gross Job Flows
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6226
PY  - 1997
Y2  - October 1997
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6226
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6226.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Christopher Foote
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Research Department, T-8
600 Atlantic Avenue
Boston, MA 02210
Tel: 617-973-3077
E-Mail: chris.foote@bos.frb.org
AB  - A large literature attempts to explain the asymmetric behavior of job destruction and job creation over the business cycle.  This paper contends that much of this asymmetry is spurious.  Analyzing gross flows in relation to the net flow virtually eliminates cyclical asymmetry in annual data and substantially reduces it in quarterly data.  To the extent that gross flows are symmetric, there is a fundamental identification problem in moving between gross flows and the net flow that is reminiscent of the earlier empirical literature on sectoral shifts.
ER  -