Abstract EN:

There are three main matters regarding employers’ decisions: employment, compensation, and training. We contribute to the economic literature on employment and compensation. Specifically, the economic question of this thesis is: how do firms adjust their employment to shocks? Disruptive innovation, employee departure or supplier shutdown are a few of the many shocks that force firms to adjust their employment. These adjustments are costly, and significant differences in firm characteristics make them respond differently to similar shocks. The idea that it takes time and effort for workers to find desirable employers and firms to find suitable employees is present throughout this work. To understand how firms respond to shocks of various kinds, we combine empirical methods with theory. On the empirical side, we create unique datasets using several data sources from Denmark. Danish data has the distinctive property that sources such as administrative records, surveys, or big data from private firms can be linked. Linking information from various sources allow, among other things, to find shocks and draw causal links between economic relationships. In one project, we also draw on theoretical models where various distortions (e.g., search frictions) prevent immediate matching between employees and employers. Concretely, we bring together datasets and structural models to estimate economic outcomes (e.g, hiring costs) that are not directly observed in datasets. In the chapter entitled "Firm Adjustment to Unexpected Departures", we use quasi-experimental variation in firms’ employment to provide a new way of estimating turnover costs. In another chapter, entitled "Firm Labor Demand Over the Business Cycle" we study how, over more than 30 years, firms grow and shrink when the macroeconomic environment changes. Finally, contrary to the first two chapters that used as primary input large administrative datasets, the last chapter, "International Evidence on Hiring Practices", uses a recent survey. This is another angle to understanding firm labor demand.