Abstract
The US labour market is widely viewed as a paragon of neo-classical flexibility. Wages respond rapidly to changes in supply and demand, with little institutional intervention. Firms hire and fire at will, with few government or union restrictions. Spells of unemployment are short, and unemployment benefits modest.
Thanks go to Steve Davis and Phil Levine for providing some of the data used in this paper and to Daniel Hamermesh and Susan Houseman for guiding us through the literature on employment-output elasticities. We appreciate the research assistence of Mark Sisak and Darrin Curtis.
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Allen, S.G., Freeman, R.B. (1997). Quantitative Flexibility in the US Labour Market. In: Amadeo, E.J., Horton, S. (eds) Labour Productivity and Flexibility. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25977-9_8
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