arXiv subjects

Rich Ryan

Publications and source records attributed to Rich Ryan.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Employment, Input-Output Linkages, and the Energy Transition in California's Top Oil-Producing Region

The US economy is transitioning away from fossil fuels toward sources of green energy. California policymakers have adopted the goal of carbon neutrality by 2045 or earlier. Within California, Kern County accounts for over 70 percent of oil produced within the state. To understand how the transition may affect opportunities in Kern, we propose a structural vector autoregressive model that jointly explains the global crude-oil market and the evolution of employment within Kern. We use monthly data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. While industries directly involved in the extraction of fossil fuels employ less than 2 percent of workers, the oil market is responsible for 11 percent of the variation in employment growth. Employment would be 6.4 percent lower currently absent the influence of the global oil market. We explain these large effects using a theoretical framework of production that relies on a network of input--output linkages. The findings may be useful to policymakers designing place-based policy aimed at helping vulnerable oil-dependent regions.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2024

Not All Oil Price Shocks Are Alike. A Replication of Kilian (American Economic Review, 2009)

The price of oil can rise because of a disruption to supply or an increase in demand. The nature of the price change determines the dynamic effects. As Kilian (2009) put it: "not all oil price shocks are alike." Using the latest available data, we extend Kilian's (2009) analysis using the R ecosystem and provide more evidence for Kilian's (2009) conclusions. Inference based on unknown conditional heteroskedasticity strengthens the conclusions. With the updated shocks, we assess how a local economy responds to the global oil market, an application that is relevant to policymakers concerned with the transition away from fossil fuels.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2024

Unemployment Volatility: When Workers Pay Costs upon Accepting Jobs

When a firm hires a worker, adding the new hire to payroll is costly. These costs reduce the amount of resources that can go to recruiting workers and amplify how unemployment responds to changes in productivity. Workers also incur up-front costs upon accepting jobs. Examples include moving expenses and regulatory fees. I establish that workers' costs lessen the response of unemployment to productivity changes and do not subtract from resources available for recruitment. The influence of workers' costs is bounded by properties of a matching function, which describes how job openings and unemployment produce hires. Using data on job finding that are adjusted for workers' transitions between employment and unemployment and for how the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey records hires, I estimate a bound that ascribes limited influence to workers' costs. The results demonstrate that costs paid by workers upon accepting jobs affect outcomes in the labor market (firms threaten workers with paying the up-front costs again if wage negotiations fail), but their influence on volatility is less important than firms' costs.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2023

Discretionary Extensions to Unemployment-Insurance Compensation and Some Potential Costs for a McCall Worker

Unemployment insurance provides temporary cash benefits to eligible unemployed workers. Benefits are sometimes extended by discretion during economic slumps. In a model that features temporary benefits and sequential job opportunities, a worker's reservation wages are studied when policymakers can make discretionary extensions to benefits. A worker's optimal labor-supply choice is characterized by a sequence of reservation wages that increases with weeks of remaining benefits. The possibility of an extension raises the entire sequence of reservation wages, meaning a worker is more selective when accepting job offers throughout their spell of unemployment. The welfare consequences of misperceiving the probability and length of an extension are investigated. Properties of the model can help policymakers interpret data on reservation wages, which may be important if extended benefits are used more often in response to economic slumps, virus pandemics, extreme heat, and natural disasters.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2023

Responses of Unemployment to Productivity Changes for a General Matching Technology

Workers separate from jobs, search for jobs, accept jobs, and fund consumption with their wages. Firms recruit workers to fill vacancies. Search frictions prevent firms from instantly hiring available workers. Unemployment persists. These features are described by the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides modeling framework. In this class of models, how unemployment responds to productivity changes depends on resources that can be allocated to job creation. Yet, this characterization has been made when matching is parameterized by a Cobb-Douglas technology. For a canonical DMP model, I (1) demonstrate that a unique steady-state equilibrium will exist as long as the initial vacancy yields a positive surplus; (2) characterize responses of unemployment to productivity changes for a general matching technology; and (3) show how a matching technology that is not Cobb-Douglas implies unemployment responds more to productivity changes, which is independent of resources available for job creation, a feature that will be of interest to business-cycle researchers.

econ.GN↗