Working Papers:
"Occupational transitions over the business cycle"
I examine how workers in different occupations are affected in recessions in terms of job separation and subsequent job finding probabilities. My analysis is motivated by Jaimovich and Siu (2015)'s recent research on the link between jobless recoveries and the disappearance of routine occupations. While this relationship has been examined at the aggregate level, the underlying individual-level transition patterns have not been studied so far. Using administrative data from Germany, I track workers’ transition patterns at different points in the business cycle. I show that, conditional on observable characteristics, workers in manual occupations have disproportionately high probability of job separation in recession. The same group of workers have a disproportionately low job finding probability during subsequent recoveries. These findings suggest that firms restructure their occupational composition during downturns.
"Labour Markets in Depression: Worker Flows and Unemployment Dynamics in Greece, Portugal and Spain" with George Chouliarakis and Franciscos Koutentakis
In the wake of the Great Recession, a number of advanced economies witnessed a significant rise in their unemployment rates. A growing literature has studied the underlying causes of the cyclical dynamics of unemployment in the largest of these economies, notably the UK and the US. But, so far, no attention has been paid towards the behaviour of worker flows into and out of unemployment in those economies that experienced depression-like labour market conditions such as Greece, Portugal and Spain. We evaluate the labour market conditions in the aftermath of the world financial and Euro zone crises in comparison with normal recessions. Our results uncover substantial heterogeneities in the significance of the separation and job finding rates across our sample and between business cycles. In turn, these heterogeneities can be traced to cross-country differences in labour market institutions.
Work in-progress:
"Labour Market integration of Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon: Challenges and Recommendations" (IMF working paper in- progress) with Andrew Tiffin and Christopher Jarvis
Drawing on employment statistics from the World Bank for Lebanon, the Jordanian labour Market Panel Survey and traditional economic models of migration, this paper reviews the current labour market policies in Jordan and Lebanon, identifies the barriers within and suggest policies that can successfully integrate Syrian refugees into the labour market while safeguarding workers in the local communities.
"Productivity, wages and inequality: How do they influence each other?" with Ekkehard Ernst and Faten Saliba