David Wiczer

Occupational Hazards and Social Disability Insurance

Using retrospective data, we introduce evidence that occupational exposure significantly affects disability risk. Incorporating this into a general equilibrium model, social disability insurance (SDI) affects welfare through (i) the classic, risk-sharing channel and (ii) a new channel of occupational reallocation. Both channels can increase welfare, but at the optimal SDI they are at odds. Welfare gains from additional risk-sharing are reduced by overly incentivizing workers to choose risky occupations. In a calibration, optimal SDI increases welfare by 2.6% relative to actuarially fair insurance, mostly due to risk sharing.

Network Search: Climbing the Job Ladder Faster

We introduce an irregular network structure into a model of frictional, on-the-job search in which workers find jobs through their network connections or directly from firms. We show that jobs found through network search have wages that stochastically dominate those found through direct contact. Because we consider irregular networks, heterogeneity in the workers position within the network leads to heterogeneity in wage and employment dynamics: better connected workers climb the job ladder faster and do not fall off it as far. These workers also pass along higher quality referrals, which benefits their connections. Despite this rich heterogeneity from the network structure, the mean-field approach allows the problem of our workers to be formulated tractably and recursively. We then calibrate and study the wage and employment dynamics coming from our job ladder with network heterogeneity. This quantitative version of our mechanism is consistent with several features of empirical studies on networks and labor markets: jobs found through networks have higher wages and last longer.

Equilibrium Sovereign Default with Endogenous Exchange Rate Depreciation

Sovereign default often affects country’s trade relations. The defaulter’s currency depreciates while trade volume falls drastically. To explain this connection, this study proposes a model to incorporate real depreciation along with sovereign bankruptcy. Defaulters must exchange more of their own goods for imports, which stimulates an adjustment to the equilibrium exchange rate. We demonstrate that a default episode can imply up to a 30% real depreciation. This matches the depreciations observed in crisis events for developing countries. To avoid this, countries are willing to maintain borrowing obligations up to a realistic level of debt.

The Survival Rate of the Smallest Establishments During the Great Recession

Very small establishments closed at about twice the rate of larger ones.

Vocational Considerations and Trends in Social Security Disability

Along with health, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) evaluates work-limiting disability by considering vocational factors including age, education, and past work experience. As the number of SSDI applicants and awards has increased, these vocational criteria are increasingly important to acceptances and denials. A unique state-level dataset allows us to estimate how these factors relate to the SSDI award process. These estimates are used to asses how changes to the demographic and occupational composition have contributed to awards trends. In our results, the prevalence of workers in their 50s are especially important. Further, increasing educational attainment lowers applications and vocational awards.

Duration Dependence and Composition in Unemployment Spells

This article reviews the evidence for duration dependence in job-finding rates and its implications for the unemployment duration distribution. The authors document duration dependence and show that it exists within nearly every demographic subgroup. Then, they examine the implications of duration dependence on unemployment duration, emphasizing that a uniform job-finding rate that does not incorporate duration dependence understates unemployment duration. Finally, they explore a composition-based approach to duration dependence, where they solve for the distribution of preexisting heterogeneity that is consistent with observed duration dependence. The authors look at how this distribution varies cyclically and, in particular, during the Great Recession. The largest changes occur at the low finding-rate tail of this distribution.

Multidimensional Skill Mismatch

What determines the earnings of a worker relative to his peers in the same occupation? What makes a worker fail in one occupation but succeed in another? More broadly, what are the factors that determine the productivity of a worker-occupation match? In this paper, we propose an empirical measure of skill mismatch for a worker-occupation match, which sheds light on these questions. This measure is based on the discrepancy between the portfolio of skills required by an occupation (for performing the tasks that produce output) and the portfolio of abilities possessed by a worker for learning those skills. This measure arises naturally in a dynamic model of occupational choice with multidimensional skills and Bayesian learning about ones ability to learn these skills. In this model, mismatch is central to the career outcomes of workers: it reduces the returns to occupational tenure, and it predicts occupational switching behavior. We construct our empirical analog by combining data from the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), O*NET, and National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). Our empirical results show that the effects of mismatch on wages are large and persistent: mismatch in occupations held early in life has a strong effect on wages in future occupations. Skill mismatch also significantly increases the probability of an occupational switch and predicts its direction in the skill space. These results provide fresh evidence on the importance of skill mismatch for the job search process.