[Job Loss, Job Finding, and Unemployment in the U.S. Economy over the Past Fifty Years]: Comment

Like several other recent studies, Robert Hall's paper puts the jobfinding rate front and center in the effort to explain unemployment fluctuations. Three observations motivate this attention to the jobfinding rate. First, the rate at which job-seeking workers find and accept new employment positions fluctuates in a strongly pro-cyclical manner. Second, changes in estimated job-finding rates account for much of the movements in the unemployment rate over time. And third, the job-finding rate is a key variable in equilibrium search and matching theories that build on In light of these observations, I share Hall's view that the hiring decision is a central topic for students of unemployment fluctuations.