Labor Markets and Business Cycles

Labor Markets and Business Cycles
Author: Robert Shimer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2010-04-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1400835232

Labor Markets and Business Cycles integrates search and matching theory with the neoclassical growth model to better understand labor market outcomes. Robert Shimer shows analytically and quantitatively that rigid wages are important for explaining the volatile behavior of the unemployment rate in business cycles. The book focuses on the labor wedge that arises when the marginal rate of substitution between consumption and leisure does not equal the marginal product of labor. According to competitive models of the labor market, the labor wedge should be constant and equal to the labor income tax rate. But in U.S. data, the wedge is strongly countercyclical, making it seem as if recessions are periods when workers are dissuaded from working and firms are dissuaded from hiring because of an increase in the labor income tax rate. When job searches are time consuming and wages are flexible, search frictions--the cost of a job search--act like labor adjustment costs, further exacerbating inconsistencies between the competitive model and data. The book shows that wage rigidities can reconcile the search model with the data, providing a quantitatively more accurate depiction of labor markets, consumption, and investment dynamics. Developing detailed search and matching models, Labor Markets and Business Cycles will be the main reference for those interested in the intersection of labor market dynamics and business cycle research.

Labor Market Rigidities and the Business Cycle

Labor Market Rigidities and the Business Cycle
Author: Mirko Abbritti
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2008
Genre:
ISBN:

We build a model that combines two types of labor market rigidities: real wage rigidities and labor market frictions. The model is used to analyze the implications of the interaction of different degrees and types of labor market rigidities for the business cycle by looking at three dimensions (i) the persistence of key economic variables; (ii) their volatility; (iii) the length, average duration and intensity of recessions and expansions. We find that real wage rigidities and labor market frictions, while often associated under the same category of "labor market rigidities" may have opposite effects on business cycle fluctuations. When the rigidity lies in the wage determination mechanism, real wages cannot fully adjust and shocks tend to be absorbed through changes in quantities. A higher degree of real wage rigidities thus amplifies the response of the real economy to shocks, shortens the duration of the business cycle but makes it more intense. When the rigidity lies in the labor market, it is more costly for firms to hire new workers and therefore unemployment does not vary as much, thus increasing inflation volatility and smoothening the response of the real economy to shocks. The cycle gets longer but less severe. Analyzing the interaction of institutions we show that these effects are reinforcing if institutions are substitutes - in the sense that countries with high labor market frictions tend to have low real wage rigidities and vice versa - while they are offsetting if institutions are complements. The findings from the model are supported when compared to the data of a range of OECD countries.

Wages, Regime Switching, and Cycles

Wages, Regime Switching, and Cycles
Author: Piero Ferri
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3642772412

The initial purposes of this book were to update and extend the discussion and the results presented ill our previous book, The Labor Market and Business Cycle Theories. Our 1990 article, which appeared in The Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, represented a first step in this direction. The consequences of this effort have materialized in a number of new chapters that has led de facto to a new book, in which the surviving parts have been largely revised. The 1989 book was too mathematically oriented for many Keynesians and post Keynesians to be fully appreciated and insufficiently microfounded for both new classicals and new-Keynesians to be warmly accepted, yet we received positive and encouraging comments, and it was sold out very quickly. It was an attempt to dis cuss dynamics in Keynesian terms, based on a double assumption that maintains its validity-that both economic facts and analytical and methodological innova tions had contributed to a renewed interest in business cycles, which over time has had its "ups and downs." Since then, many more articles and books have appeared, stressing in particular the role of microfoundations and of nonlinearities in shaping business cycle theory.

Hysteresis and Business Cycles

Hysteresis and Business Cycles
Author: Ms.Valerie Cerra
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2020-05-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1513536990

Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as “hysteresis,” argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and theoretical literature that motivate this paradigm shift. The renewed interest in hysteresis has been sparked by the persistence of the Global Financial Crisis and fears of a slow recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The findings of the recent literature have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. In recessions, monetary and fiscal policies need to be more active to avoid the permanent scars of a downturn. And in good times, running a high-pressure economy could have permanent positive effects.

The Labor Market and Business Cycle Theories

The Labor Market and Business Cycle Theories
Author: Piero Ferri
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3662008319

Interest in business cycles has had its 'ups and downs'. After a period of almost steady state growth and of economic tranquility, when the business cycle seemed to be obsolete, the turbulence of the 70s and 80s has contributedto a renewed interest in the topic. Important analytical and methodological innovations have also favored the present abundance of contributions. Four innovations are of particular importance: i. microfoundations ii. nonlinearities iii. stochastic variables iv. real aspects. Both Classical macroeconomics and new-Keynesian approaches seem to share these characteristics, which apply both to endogenous and exogenous explanations of the cycle. The distance separating the newer literature from its forebears seems vast. Previously, cycle theory was characterized by a macro approach and utilized nonlinearities either through piecewise 'linear models or with the aid of Classical theorems in the field of dynamic systems. To consider and to compare the old and the new literature on business cycles is one of the goals of this book. To narrow the distance separating them is another goal of this research. We do not try to bridge it, but rather to revisit the former tradition with new tools. Finally, a particular emphasis is put on the 'ceilings and floors' type of literature. One of us has written a D. Phil. thesis with Sir John Hicks, and both have worked with H. P. Minsky. Hicks, along with Goodwin, introdu. ced the concept of ceilings and floors into business cycle analysis, and Minsky made important contributions to the area.

Emerging Market Business Cycles

Emerging Market Business Cycles
Author: Ms.Emine Boz
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 51
Release: 2012-10-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 147551249X

Emerging economies are characterized by higher consumption and real wage variability relative to output and a strongly countercyclical current account. A real business cycle model of a small open economy that embeds a Mortensen-Pissarides type of search-matching frictions and countercyclical interest rate shocks can jointly account for these regularities. In the face of countercyclical interest rate shocks, search-matching frictions increase future employment uncertainty, improving workers’ incentive to save and generating a greater response of consumption and the current account. Higher consumption response in turn feeds into larger fluctuations in the workers’ bargaining power while the interest rates shocks lead to variations in the firms’ willingness to hire; both of which contribute to a highly variable real wage.

Optimal Unemployment Insurance

Optimal Unemployment Insurance
Author: Andreas Pollak
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2007
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9783161493041

Designing a good unemployment insurance scheme is a delicate matter. In a system with no or little insurance, households may be subject to a high income risk, whereas excessively generous unemployment insurance systems are known to lead to high unemployment rates and are costly both from a fiscal perspective and for society as a whole. Andreas Pollak investigates what an optimal unemployment insurance system would look like, i.e. a system that constitutes the best possible compromise between income security and incentives to work. Using theoretical economic models and complex numerical simulations, he studies the effects of benefit levels and payment durations on unemployment and welfare. As the models allow for considerable heterogeneity of households, including a history-dependent labor productivity, it is possible to analyze how certain policies affect individuals in a specific age, wealth or skill group. The most important aspect of an unemployment insurance system turns out to be the benefits paid to the long-term unemployed. If this parameter is chosen too high, a large number of households may get caught in a long spell of unemployment with little chance of finding work again. Based on the predictions in these models, the so-called "Hartz IV" labor market reform recently adopted in Germany should have highly favorable effects on the unemployment rates and welfare in the long run.

Labor Market Dynamics in Developing Countries

Labor Market Dynamics in Developing Countries
Author: Mariano Bosch
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 43
Release: 2005
Genre: Business Cycle
ISBN:

Abstract: The authors study the dynamics of three developing country labor markets using recent advances in the estimation of continuous time Markov processes. They first examine the flows of workers among five states: three types of paid labor, unemployment, and out of the labor force. The authors find a high degree of commonality in patterns of worker flows among the three countries and attempt to compare the flexibility of the markets by examining an index of overall mobility. Second, they seek to establish whether the issues of advanced country labor markets apply to developing country markets or whether the latter constitute a different phylum. Paralleling the mainstream literature on the role of being out of the labor force as discouraged unemployment, the authors then identify some common stylized facts about the role of the informal self-employed and salaried sectors and to what degree they serve as a holding pattern versus a desirable alternative to formal sector work. In the process, the authors identify very strong differences in mobility patterns between men and women and attempt to shed some light on whether these differences arise from discrimination or perhaps instead the constraints imposed by household responsibilities. Finally, they study labor market adjustment across the business cycle in Mexico and identify patterns of job creation and destruction among the three paid sectors and confirm the mainstream view of the role of out of the labor force as a procyclical phenomenon.

Employment Security and Labor Market Flexibility

Employment Security and Labor Market Flexibility
Author: Kazuyoshi Kōshiro
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1992
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780814320792

Since the oil crisis of the 1970s, increased labor market flexibility seems to have become an indispensable ingredient of economic success. This book examines the critical issues that affect labor market flexibility and job security in the main industrialized economies of the United States, Japan, West Germany, the United Kingdom, and Europe, in an attempt to more fully understand the complex forces at work within such labor markets. Employment Security and Labor Market Flexibility originated from The International Symposium on Labor Market Flexibility in Yokohama, Japan, in 1986, in which scholars in economics, industrial relations, and labor law scholars scrutinized the similarities and differences of the labor markets in these countries. They focused on three main topics: wage flexibility in response to changing economic conditions, the legal and institutional framework for employment security, and international comparison of employment adjustment. Comparison of wage flexibility as well as numerical and functional flexibility among these countries were examined by both qualitative and quantitative analyses. The labor market cannot be treated in the same way as other markets because it deals directly with human beings who are less likely to obey the immutable laws of the market mechanism. Nevertheless, Kazutoshi Koshiro asserts that it is still important to build a framework on which to understand and assess the role of labor flexibility in the competitive process, and it is with this framework in mind that these chapters have been assembled into one volume. Individual chapters compare the relative flexibility of compensation and employment over the business cycle in the United States with that of Japan; analyze the relative flexibility of Japanese wages; unravel some of the underlying forces that comprise the employment security situation in the United States; study the important relationship between economic conditions and the labor market and explain the difference between the employment protection legislation of the United States on the one hand, and Europe and Japan, on the other; and compare the nature of labor markets and employment adjustment techniques of the United States, Europe, and Japan.