Asymmetric volatility spillovers between UK regional worker flows and vacancies

This paper investigates volatility spillovers between UK regional job finding, job separation and vacancy rates. Employing a large Bayesian logistic smooth transition vector autoregression (VAR) model, we find high volatility spillovers between UK regional labour markets. Analyses of net spillovers show that, in general, shocks to job separation rates tend to spread into job finding and vacancy rates, while vacancy rates are usually at the receiving end of shocks transmitted from the job separations and job findings. To shed further light on the shock propagation mechanism, we also look into more detailed matters such as the differences in spillovers between regions within the same regime, and that of the same region but in different regimes.