Labor demand, productivity and business cycle: evidence from Portuguese large firms

Abstract

What determines the cyclical behaviour of labor productivity? This article considers intra firm and inter firm explanations for the correlation between labor productivity and aggregate shocks. From a set of 2100 Portuguese firms with more than 100 workers, between 1995 and 1999, we found that: (1) aggregate labor productivity was procyclical, although more than half of the firms revealed countercyclical productivity; (2) procyclical intra firm effects were stronger than countercyclical inter firm dynamics; (3) both intra and inter firm theories are important to understand the dynamics of labor productivity; (4) cleansing effects dominated over sullying effects; (5) only a framework integrating several intra firm theories can explain the observed evidence.