Task Assignment over the Business Cycle
检验了企业面对负面需求冲击时，是否将工人分配到比平时技能要求更低的任务上，利用州-行业就业变化衡量需求条件，结果支持该假设，且任务技能要求呈顺周期性。
In this article, I evaluate the hypothesis that firms respond to negative demand shocks by assigning workers to tasks that require less skill than the tasks they normally carry out. Using changes in employment in state-industry cells as a measure of demand conditions facing individual firms, I provide evidence in favor of the hypothesis. Furthermore, the skill requirements of the tasks carried out by workers are procyclical. The results are consistent with a specific capital model where employers move workers between tasks so that layoffs are concentrated on workers with low levels of firm-specific human capital. Copyright 2000 by University of Chicago Press.