Business cycle, reallocation of labor and asset prices

Abstract

Empirical literature on reallocation of resources during business cycles provides an evidence of increased reallocation of labor across firms during downturns. In this paper I build a theoretical model with search frictions in the labor market, that is consistent with this observation, and study implications of search and match frictions for the cross section of stock returns. In the model firms having more growth opportunities benefit from recessions due to more slack in the labor market which allows them to expand quicker and convert higher share of their growth opportunities into profitable projects. This feature generates a return spread between value and growth firms. In the model sorts of stocks based on different growth indicators yield patterns documented empirically in previous studies.