Measuring Employer-to-Employer Reallocation

Abstract

We revisit measurement of employer-to-employer (EE) transitions in the monthly Current Population Survey. The incidence of missing answers to the question on change of employer sharply increases starting with the introduction of a new software instrument to conduct interviews in January 2007 and of the Respondent Identification Policy in 2008–2009. We document nonrandom nonresponse selection by observable and unobservable worker characteristics that correlate with EE mobility. We propose a selection model and a procedure to impute missing answers. Our imputed EE aggregate series no longer trends down after 2000 and restores a close congruence with the business cycle after 2007. (JEL C83, E24, E32, J62)