企业层面的异质性与货币政策对劳动力需求的影响

Firm level heterogeneity and theimpact of monetary policy on labour Gert Bijnens, John Hutchinson,Arthur Saint Guilhem Disclaimer:This paper should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank(ECB). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the ECB. Challenges for Monetary Policy Transmission in a Changing World Network (ChaMP) This paper contains research conducted within the network “Challenges for Monetary Policy Transmission in a Changing WorldNetwork” (ChaMP). It consists of economists from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the national central banks (NCBs) of theEuropean System of Central Banks (ESCB). ChaMP is coordinated by a team chaired by Philipp Hartmann (ECB), and consisting of Diana Bonfim (Banco de Portugal), MargheritaBottero (Banca d’Italia), Emmanuel Dhyne (Nationale Bank van België/Banque Nationale de Belgique) and Maria T. Valderrama(Oesterreichische Nationalbank), who are supported by Melina Papoutsi and Gonzalo Paz-Pardo (both ECB), 7 central bank advisers ChaMP seeks to revisit our knowledge of monetary transmission channels in the euro area in the context of unprecedented shocks,multiple ongoing structural changes and the extension of the monetary policy toolkit over the last decade and a half as well as the recentsteep inflation wave and its reversal. More information is provided on its website. Abstract Monetarypolicy asymmetrically affects the response of firms’employmentto an output shock and plays a role in cushioningemployment adjustment over the business cycle. Combining annual firm-level data until 2020 with quarterly firm-level data until 2023 and high- Keywords: Labour hoarding, Monetary policy transmission, Firm-level heterogeneity, Employment JEL Codes: E52, J23, E32. Non-technical summary In recent years, employment in the euro area has remained remarkably strong, even when economicgrowth slowed and firms were hit by major shocks. Many companies chose not to lay off workerswhen demand weakened. Instead, they held on to staff, expecting conditions to improve or fearing This paper examines how monetary policy influences this decision. Do lower interest ratesencourage firms to keep workers during downturns? And does tighter policy push firms to adjust To answer these questions, we combine detailed firm-level data from several euro area countrieswith high-frequency measures of monetary policy surprises around ECB announcements. This allowsus to study how firms change their workforce when output rises or falls, and how this response We find that monetary policy does matter. When policy is accommodative, firms tend to retain moreworkers for a given drop in output. When policy is restrictive, firms reduce employment morestrongly. Importantly, the effects are not symmetric: tightening has a noticeably stronger impact on Not all firms respond in the same way. Financially constrained firms adjust employment moreaggressively when policy tightens. Firms with stronger balance sheets are better able to smoothemployment over time. Differences in workforce composition also play a role: while both high- and Overall, our results show that monetary policy influences labour markets not only by affectingdemand in the economy, but also by shaping firms’ ability to retain workers during difficult periods.This helps explain why employment can remain resilient in some downturns, but also why it may 1. Introduction A striking recent feature of the post-pandemic euro area economy is that employment has remainedexceptionally resilient despite sluggish output growth and successive inflationary shocks. This patternruns counter to the traditional Okun’s Law relationship and has been widely attributed tounprecedented labour market tightness and labour hoarding by firms (Doornik et al., 2023) Indeed,many businesses have opted to retain workers even amid demand shortfalls, in anticipation of futurerecovery or hiring difficulties. For example, an ECB survey of firms in early 2023 found that in a tightlabour market companies were keen to hold onto employees they expected to need going forward At the same time, depicting the economy and labour markets in general terms ignores the richdynamics that operate at a more granular level. Indeed, over the last decade, the role of individualfirm heterogeneity in explaining macroeconomic and labour market aggregate outcomes has garneredconsiderable attention. This heterogeneity has been shown to explain much of the rise in workers When confronted with changes in the macroeconomic outlook, firms adjust employment levels todifferent degrees, which can differ considerably even within very narrowly defined industries(Syverson, 2011). Our empirical strategy is also related to Melcangi (2018), who uses industry-levelshocks to identify firm-level hiring responses and emphasizes the role of cross-firm heterogeneity inlabour demand adjustment. That being said, the source of the heterog