Online Vacancies and its Role in Labor Market Performance

This paper assesses whether the expansion of online job vacancies leads to a more efficient labor market. We provide compelling evidence that the increase in online job vacancy penetration in Colombia has had an enhancing effect on the labor market's efficiency by making it easier for firms to find workers to fill their job openings. An estimation of the Beveridge Curve (unemployment to vacancies relationship), a well-established theoretical development from search models, concludes that policies that increase online vacancy posting enhance efficiency. We implement a differences in differences design to take advantage of a regulation, which mandates that all authorized online vacancy providers report any online vacancy to the Public Employment Service in Colombia. We find that sub-segments of the labor market with a relevant fraction of their vacancies posted online, presented on average nearly 15% lower vacancy rate for a given unemployment rate. Therefore, for these sub-segments, the Beveridge curve shifted inwards due to efficiency enhancements. These findings support active search policies to reduce information barriers, which reduce the odds of firms and workers finding one other in the labor market. Policies as those implemented by the Public Employment Service in Colombia seem to be beneficial.

How Effective Was the Romanian Labour Market After 2008?

The efficient operation of the labour market is a matter of high stake for every state, considering that it reflects the balance between supply and demand. The extent to which such balance is achieved is highlighted by the Beveridge curve. This paper examines the efficient operation of the Romanian labour market, as measured by the relevant indicators of labour demand and supply. In order to capture the evolution of these indicators across the three target sub-periods (the crisis, the rebound and the resumption of an upward trend), the timeline subject to survey was 2008Q2-2016Q3. The survey conducted for this purpose revealed fluctuations in the number and rate of job vacancies, respectively in the unemployment rate. However, in the last part of the surveyed period, the trend of such indicators was downward for the unemployment rate and upward for the number and rate of job vacancies. Even so, these indicators failed to match the levels recorded before the outbreak of the economic crisis. Due to such evolutions, the Beveridge curve presented shifts of direction specific to the three sub-periods. Throughout the last part of the surveyed period, the curve seemed to recover slightly towards the top-left direction at national level. However, regionally, the evolutions of labour supply and demand varied, and the Beveridge curves varied accordingly. Surprisingly, it was not Bucharest-Ilfov, considered the best economically developed area in Romania, which reported the best correlation between labour supply and demand, but the Central region.

The Beveridge Curve in the Housing Market

As opposed to a recent criticism (according to which a model à la Pissarides inherently generates a downward sloping Beveridge curve), this short theoretical paper shows that a baseline search-and-matching model is able to take into account the main distinctive features of the housing market, thus generating an upward sloping Beveridge curve.