Dynamism Diminished: The Role of
Housing Markets and Credit
Conditions
Discussion by: Dan Andrews*
Chief Advisor on Macroeconomic Modelling & Policy
Co-Chair of OECD Global Forum on Productivity
* Thanks to Nathan Deutscher and Jonathan Hambur
Keeping pace with technological change: the role of capabilities and dynamism
OECD GFP Conference | Sydney – 20 June 2019

10
15
20
25
10
15
20
25
2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017
*Young firms are 0-5 years old
Sources: De-identified matched employer-employee data;
Australian Treasury
%%
The context: market dynamism has
declined
The employment share of young firms (< 5years)
2
A: United States B: Australia
1. Not an isolated incident: labour market dynamism has also declined
2. High stakes: sluggish productivity and wage growth
3. The doyens of dynamism: Davis + Haltiwanger are on the job

Declining market dynamism: some
big questions
The literature has explored three key aspects of declining
market dynamism:
1. The what: use high quality micro data in novel ways to explore
the nature of the decline
2. The consequences: on productivity, wages, groups of people
3. The causes, ranging from:
a) The benign (e.g. technology, demography) to…
b) A policy concern (e.g. ↑ adj frictions wrt finance, labour; mkt power)
Establishing the respective roles of 3a vs 3b is one of the biggest
economic policy questions of our time
3
If we’re lucky…
and if we’re really lucky…
The paper contributes on all fronts. An impressive effort!

The paper: summary
• Result: a robust positive link between young firm employment
shares and house prices at the local level
– House prices matter more than bank loan supply
– Young small firms more exposed than old small firms
– The secular decline in young firm activity was reinforced by the
post-2007 collapse in house prices
• Channels: house prices matter for growth through
– Wealth, liquidity, collateral and credit supply effects on the firm
entry and post-entry growth margins
– In addition to the canonical consumption demand channels
• Consequences: younger (and less educated) workers are
particularly affected by these developments
4

Discussion - outline
Discussion structure
1. Result: the house price and young firm activity link
2. Mechanisms: why are younger workers particularly affected
 Using matched employee employer data to build a link between
firm entry, labour market fluidity and young worker fortunes?
3. Implications: lessons for policymakers
Approach: Draw on analysis for Australia using Treasury’s
prototype longitudinal matched employee employer
dataset.
5

House prices: a new channel
influencing market dynamism
• Credible reasons why HPs and young firm activity should be linked
• Similar pattern across states in AUS. Local-level analysis forthcoming
• But is the link truly causal? 6
A: United States B: Australia

Identification
Plausibly exogenous variation in
house prices:
• Instrumented by Saiz (2010)
housing supply elasticity interacted
with boom/bust dummy (IV1) or
local cycle (IV2)
• Controlling for other cyclical shocks
But more discussion on what supply
elasticities pick-up would be useful
• What if supply elasticities reflect
regulations that also affect firm
entry and labour mobility?
7
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30
Land use regulation index³
Supply responsiveness¹
Correlation coefficient: -0.46***
Supply elasticities vary with the
regulatory burden across US cities
Source: Andrews, D et al (2011), "Housing Markets and
Structural Policies in OECD Countries", OECD Economics
Department Working Papers, No. 836

0
10
20
30
40
0
10
20
30
40
Young firm
(0-5 years old)
Mature firm
(>5 years old)
Sources: De-identified matched employer-employee data;
Australian Treasury
* Young workers are those less than 30 years
%%
Mechanisms: why are young workers
particularly affected?
Why? Compositional effect at
play as young workers are more
likely to work in young firms
(Ouinet & Zarutskie, 2014). 8
Composition of employment by firm age –
Australia*
Share of workers that are young
When the young-firm share of
local employment rises, local
employment shifts from older
to younger workers and from
more- to less-educated
workers. To the best of our
knowledge, we are the first to
uncover this relationship.
–Davis and Haltiwanger (2019)

Digging deeper: the role of job
switching
9
Wages and job switching – Australia
Purged of cyclical & demographic influences
Source: Deutscher (2019), “Job-to-job transitions and
the earnings of Australian workers” Treasury Working
Paper forthcoming.
• Job switching is a key mechanism
for ↑ wages, esp. for young (Topel
& Ward, ‘90)
• Leading models of wages
incorporate on-the-job search
(Burdett & Mortensen ‘98)
– More fluid labour markets associated
with higher wages, even for stayers
(Krahan et al, 2017, Deutscher 2019)
• ↓ young firm activity could ↓
worker wages:
– Job-ladder effects for the young
– Bargaining power effects for all
workers via ↓labour mkt fluidity

What is the connection between declining
young firm activity and job switching?
10
Workers are less likely to switch jobs
in the US and Australia.
Over one-half of the decline in AUS reflects
less switching from old to young firms
Old-to-young Switching and Entry Rate
Market Dynamism Indicators – Australia
6
8
10
12
14
1
2
3
4
5
2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015
* Young firms are 0-5 years old
Sources: De-identified matched employer-employee data; Australian Treasury
%%
Old-to-young firm switch rate
(LHS)*
Firm entry rate
(RHS)

Firm entry creates outside options for
workers and scope to switch jobs
Higher firm entry is associated with more job switching, especially from mature to young
firms. But no such relationship is evident for job switching between old firms (slide A1).11
Job switching and firm entry – Australia*
All switching Switching: old-to-young firms
Note: Areas are SA4; capital city treated as one area; purged of time and area effects and the
employment share of young firms.
Sources: De-identified matched employer-employee data; Australian Treasury

Three key reminders for policy
1. Policies that impact house price dynamics affect growth:
– Demand-side: canonical consumption channels
– Medium-term potential: via firm dynamics (Davis & Haltiwanger)
12

Three key reminders for policy
2. Young firms are particularly sensitive to policy settings
13
– Policies are typically designed in
consultation with incumbents
– But young firms have little voice
• “we never observe the firms
that choose not to enter”
– Despite the fact that young
firms disproportionately
driving aggregate outcomes
-6
-3
0
3
-6
-3
0
3
Mature Large Young Large Mature SME Young SME
Gross Job Creation Gross Job Destruction Net Job creation
* Young 0-5 years, Mature over 5 years. SMEs 0-199 FTE, Large 200 FTE
or more
Sources:ABS BLADE;Australian Treasury
m
Young Firms Drive Net Job Creation – Australia
2008 to 2016, full-time equivalents employment
m

Three key reminders for policy
3. Matched employee-employer data are critical
a) Linking labour market fluidity to wage growth helps make
the case for market-dynamism friendly policies.
b) Treasury is collaborating to:
 Include higher education data into our prototype matched
employee employer database.
 Leverage new technologies to open-up the access environment.
c) Australia are microdata laggards but we are on a mission to
catch-up to the frontier.
 Davis and Haltiwanger is a great example of the policy-relevant
analysis we can aspire to if we build our microdata capacity.
14

SPARES
15

A1. Job switching between old firms is
negatively associated with firm entry
16
Job switching and firm entry – Australia*
Old-to-young firm
Note: Areas are SA4; capital city treated as one area; purged of time and area effects
Sources: De-identified matched employer-employee data; Australian Treasury