Three essays in labor economics

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20318693

There were many curiosities in the post-Great Recession period, notable among them was the behavior of the labor market and related inflationary and wage behaviors. The traditional models used to explain the labor market were not fitting well to the realities of the United States economy, leaving many puzzles to be answered. This set of essays delves into some of the subgroups of the labor market to better understand the behaviors of individuals and their potential impacts on the United States labor market. The first essay describes those who are employed part time for economic reasons and attempts to explain the reasons for a seeming structural change in the relative composition of the labor market when comparing those employed part time for economic reasons to the unemployment rate from the early 2000s to the present. The second essay describes the welfare impacts of being employed part time for economic reasons and suggests a potential space for public policy to improve the wellbeing of workers who experience involuntary hours reduction. The third essay examines the behavior of those who are marginally attached to the labor force, finding amongst other things that those who are marginally attached are equally as likely to transition to employment as the unemployed.