IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jeurec/v14y2016i2p438-467.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Payroll Taxes, Social Insurance, And Business Cycles

Author

Listed:
  • Michael C. Burda
  • Mark Weder

Abstract

Payroll taxes represent a major distortionary in uence of governments on labor markets. This paper examines the role of payroll taxation and the social safety net for cyclical uctuations in a nonmonetary economy with labor market frictions and unemployment insurance, when the latter is only imperfectly related to search effort. A balanced social insurance budget renders gross wages more rigid over the cycle and, as a result, strengthens the modelÂ’s endogenous propagation mechanism. For conventional calibrations, the model generates a negatively sloped Beveridge curve as well as substantial volatility and persistence of vacancies and unemployment.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Michael C. Burda & Mark Weder, 2016. "Payroll Taxes, Social Insurance, And Business Cycles," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 438-467, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jeurec:v:14:y:2016:i:2:p:438-467
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/jeea.2016.14.issue-2
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jordi Galí & Thijs van Rens, 2021. "The Vanishing Procyclicality of Labour Productivity [Why have business cycle fluctuations become less volatile?]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 302-326.
    2. Marcus Hagedorn & Iourii Manovskii, 2008. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies Revisited," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1692-1706, September.
    3. Burda, Michael C. & Weder, Mark, 1999. "Complementarity of labor market institutions, equilibrium unemployment and the persistence of business cycles," SFB 373 Discussion Papers 1999,49, Humboldt University of Berlin, Interdisciplinary Research Project 373: Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes.
    4. Gartner, Hermann & Merkl, Christian & Rothe, Thomas, 2012. "Sclerosis and large volatilities: Two sides of the same coin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 106-109.
    5. Morten O. Ravn, 2008. "The Consumption-Tightness Puzzle," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2006, pages 9-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Boeri, Tito & Burda, Michael & Kramarz, Francis (ed.), 2008. "Working Hours and Job Sharing in the EU and USA: Are Europeans Lazy? Or Americans Crazy?," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199231027, Decembrie.
    7. Cole, Harold L & Rogerson, Richard, 1999. "Can the Mortensen-Pissarides Matching Model Match the Business-Cycle Facts?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(4), pages 933-959, November.
    8. Tripier, Fabien, 2004. "Can the labor market search model explain the fluctuations of allocations of time?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 131-146, January.
    9. Costain, James S. & Reiter, Michael, 2008. "Business cycles, unemployment insurance, and the calibration of matching models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1120-1155, April.
    10. Cooley, Thomas F, 1997. "Calibrated Models," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 13(3), pages 55-69, Autumn.
    11. Andreas Hornstein & Per Krusell & Giovanni L. Violante, 2005. "Unemployment and vacancy fluctuations in the matching model: inspecting the mechanism," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 91(Sum), pages 19-50.
    12. Robert E. Hall & Paul R. Milgrom, 2008. "The Limited Influence of Unemployment on the Wage Bargain," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1653-1674, September.
    13. Francesco Daveri & Guido Tabellini, 2000. "Unemployment, growth and taxation in industrial countries," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 15(30), pages 48-104.
    14. Burda Michael C. & Weder Mark, 2002. "Complementarity of Labor Market Institutions, Equilibrium Unemployment and the Propagation of Business Cycles," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-24, February.
    15. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 25-49, March.
    16. Mark Gertler & Antonella Trigari, 2009. "Unemployment Fluctuations with Staggered Nash Wage Bargaining," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(1), pages 38-86, February.
    17. Ebell, Monique, 2008. "Resurrecting the participation margin," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19570, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Merz, Monika, 1995. "Search in the labor market and the real business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 269-300, November.
    19. Veracierto, Marcelo, 2008. "On the cyclical behavior of employment, unemployment and labor force participation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 1143-1157, September.
    20. Bils, Mark J, 1985. "Real Wages over the Business Cycle: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(4), pages 666-689, August.
    21. Michael Reiter & James Costain, 2007. "The relevance of capital and savings for labor market fluctuations," 2007 Meeting Papers 435, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    22. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Huffman, Gregory W, 1988. "Investment, Capacity Utilization, and the Real Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(3), pages 402-417, June.
    23. Nicholas Kaldor, 1936. "Wage Subsidies as a Remedy for Unemployment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44, pages 721-721.
    24. Arthur J. Hosios, 1990. "On The Efficiency of Matching and Related Models of Search and Unemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(2), pages 279-298.
    25. Gartner, Hermann & Merkl, Christian & Rothe, Thomas, 2009. "They Are Even Larger! More (on) Puzzling Labor Market Volatilities," IZA Discussion Papers 4403, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    26. Robert E. Hall, 2005. "Employment Fluctuations with Equilibrium Wage Stickiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 50-65, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nicole Wiebach & Lutz Hildebrandt, 2010. "Context Effects as Customer Reaction on Delisting of Brands," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2010-056, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    2. Julien Albertini & Xavier Fairise, 2018. "Layoffs, recalls and experience rating," Working Papers halshs-01879560, HAL.
    3. Langot, François & Pizzo, Alessandra, 2019. "Accounting for labor gaps," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 312-347.
    4. Agnieszka Janek & Tino Kluge & Rafal Weron & Uwe Wystup, 2010. "FX Smile in the Heston Model," HSC Research Reports HSC/10/02, Hugo Steinhaus Center, Wroclaw University of Technology.
    5. Michael C. Burda & Jennifer Hunt, 2011. "What Explains the German Labor Market Miracle in the Great Recession," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(1 (Spring), pages 273-335.
    6. Nikolaus Hautsch & Peter Malec & Melanie Schienle, 2014. "Capturing the Zero: A New Class of Zero-Augmented Distributions and Multiplicative Error Processes," The Journal of Financial Econometrics, Society for Financial Econometrics, vol. 12(1), pages 89-121.
    7. Albertini, Julien & Fairise, Xavier & Terriau, Anthony, 2023. "Unemployment insurance, recalls, and experience rating," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    8. Simon Voigts, 2014. "Why the split of payroll taxation between firms and workers matters for macroeconomic stability," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2014-061, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    9. Seele, Stefanie & Burda, Michael, 2016. "No Role for the Hartz Reforms? Demand and Supply Factors in the German Labor Market, 1993-2014," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145650, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Finkelstein-Shapiro, Alan & Sarzosa, Miguel, 2012. "Unemployement Protection for Informal Workers in Latin America and the Caribbean," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 4542, Inter-American Development Bank.
    11. Basteck, Christian & Daniëls, Tijmen R., 2011. "Every symmetric 3×3 global game of strategic complementarities has noise-independent selection," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(6), pages 749-754.
    12. Ronald Bachmann & Rahel Felder, 2021. "Labour market transitions, shocks and institutions in turbulent times: a cross-country analysis," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 329-352, May.
    13. Franziska Schulze, 2010. "Spatial Dependencies in German Matching Functions," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2010-054, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    14. Carnicelli, Lauro, 2018. "Financial shocks and endogenous labor market participation," MPRA Paper 90254, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Ahrens, Steffen & Nejati, Nooshin & Pfeiffer, Philipp Ludwig, 2015. "Layoff Taxes, Unemployment Insurance, and Business Cycle Fluctuations," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112807, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    16. Julien Albertini & Arthur Poirier, 2014. "Discount Factor Shocks and Labor Market Dynamics," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2014-033, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    17. Burda Michael C. & Seele Stefanie, 2017. "Das deutsche Arbeitsmarktwunder: Eine Bilanz," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 18(3), pages 179-204, October.
    18. Szymon Borak & Adam Misiorek & Rafał Weron, 2010. "Models for Heavy-tailed Asset Returns," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2010-049, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    19. Enno Mammen & Christoph Rothe & Melanie Schienle, 2010. "Nonparametric Regression with Nonparametrically Generated Covariates," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2010-059, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    20. Ralf Sabiwalsky, 2010. "Executive Compensation Regulation and the Dynamics of the Pay-Performance Sensitivity," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2010-051, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    21. Almosova, Anna & Burda, Michael C. & Voigts, Simon, 2020. "Social Security Contributions and the Business Cycle," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    22. Panagiotis Palaios & Evangelia Papapetrou, 2019. "Asymmetric dynamics in the social contributions and social benefits nexus in Greece," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 327-349, November.
    23. Vladimir Panov, 2010. "Estimation of the signal subspace without estimation of the inverse covariance matrix," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2010-050, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    24. Maria Grith & Volker Krätschmer, 2010. "Parametric estimation of risk neutral density functions," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2010-045, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lechthaler, Wolfgang & Merkl, Christian & Snower, Dennis J., 2010. "Monetary persistence and the labor market: A new perspective," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 968-983, May.
    2. Costain, James S. & Reiter, Michael, 2008. "Business cycles, unemployment insurance, and the calibration of matching models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1120-1155, April.
    3. Alejandro Justiniano & Claudio Michelacci, 2011. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies in the US and Europe," NBER Working Papers 17429, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Alejandro Justiniano & Claudio Michelacci, 2012. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies in the United States and Europe," NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages 169-235.
    5. Rogerson, Richard & Shimer, Robert, 2011. "Search in Macroeconomic Models of the Labor Market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 7, pages Pages: 61, Elsevier.
    6. Mark Gertler & Antonella Trigari, 2009. "Unemployment Fluctuations with Staggered Nash Wage Bargaining," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(1), pages 38-86, February.
    7. Leena Rudanko, 2008. "Aggregate and Idiosyncratic Risk in a Frictional Labor Market," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series wp2008-009, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    8. Amaral, Pedro S. & Tasci, Murat, 2016. "The cyclical behavior of equilibrium unemployment and vacancies across OECD countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 184-201.
    9. Haefke, Christian & Sonntag, Marcus & van Rens, Thijs, 2013. "Wage rigidity and job creation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 887-899.
    10. Tsasa, Jean-Paul K., 2022. "Labor market volatility in a fully specified RBC search model: An analytical investigation," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    11. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2009. "The Unemployment Volatility Puzzle: Is Wage Stickiness the Answer?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1339-1369, September.
    12. Mark Gertler & Luca Sala & Antonella Trigari, 2008. "An Estimated Monetary DSGE Model with Unemployment and Staggered Nominal Wage Bargaining," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(8), pages 1713-1764, December.
    13. Kudlyak, Marianna, 2014. "The cyclicality of the user cost of labor," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 53-67.
    14. Petrosky-Nadeau, Nicolas & Wasmer, Etienne, 2015. "Macroeconomic dynamics in a model of goods, labor, and credit market frictions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 97-113.
    15. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5l6uh8ogmqildh09h481l2tb5 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Sveen, Tommy & Weinke, Lutz, 2008. "New Keynesian perspectives on labor market dynamics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 921-930, July.
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5por5bt92h8l0bc7ls4elmcc0b is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Gartner, Hermann & Merkl, Christian & Rothe, Thomas, 2012. "Sclerosis and large volatilities: Two sides of the same coin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 106-109.
    19. Kilponen, Juha & Vanhala, Juuso, 2009. "Productivity and job flows: heterogeneity of new hires and continuing jobs in the business cycle," Working Paper Series 1080, European Central Bank.
    20. Faccini, Renato & Ortigueira, Salvador, 2010. "Labor-market volatility in the search-and-matching model: The role of investment-specific technology shocks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1509-1527, August.
    21. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/1787nsa6d1927a90u4bkkombn4 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Hertweck Matthias Sebastian, 2013. "Strategic wage bargaining, labor market volatility, and persistence," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 1-27, October.
    23. Ebell, Monique, 2011. "On the cyclicality of unemployment: Resurrecting the participation margin," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 822-836.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jeurec:v:14:y:2016:i:2:p:438-467. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.