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Structural and Cyclical Forces in the Labor Market during the Great Recession: Cross-Country Evidence

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  • Luca Sala
  • Ulf Söderström
  • Antonella Trigari

Abstract

We use an estimated monetary business cycle model with search and matching frictions in the labor market and nominal price and wage rigidities to study four countries (the U.S., the U.K., Sweden, and Germany) during the financial crisis and the Great Recession. We estimate the model over the period prior to the financial crisis and use the model to interpret movements in GDP, unemployment, vacancies, and wages in the period from 2007 until 2011. We show that contractionary financial factors and reduced efficiency in labor market matching were largely responsible for the experience in the U.S. Financial factors were also important in the U.K., but less so in Sweden and Germany. Reduced matching efficiency was considerably less important in the U.K. and Sweden than in the U.S., but matching efficiency improved in Germany, helping to keep unemployment low. A counterfactual experiment suggests that unemployment in Germany would have been substantially higher if the German labor market had been more similar to that in the U.S.
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  • Luca Sala & Ulf Söderström & Antonella Trigari, 2013. "Structural and Cyclical Forces in the Labor Market during the Great Recession: Cross-Country Evidence," NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(1), pages 345-404.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucp:intsma:doi:10.1086/669201
    DOI: 10.1086/669201
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    Cited by:

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    2. Gehrke, Britta & Lechthaler, Wolfgang & Merkl, Christian, 2019. "The German labor market during the Great Recession: Shocks and institutions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 192-208.
    3. Francesco Furlanetto & Nicolas Groshenny, 2016. "Mismatch Shocks and Unemployment During the Great Recession," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(7), pages 1197-1214, November.
    4. Marine Salès, 2016. "Do Corporate Credit Conditions Alter Labor Market Dynamics? A SVAR Analysis in a Transatlantic Perspective," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01333025, HAL.
    5. Melosi, Leonardo & Faccini, Renato, 2019. "Bad Jobs and Low Inflation," CEPR Discussion Papers 13628, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Liu, Zheng & Miao, Jianjun & Zha, Tao, 2016. "Land prices and unemployment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 86-105.
    7. Thomas Brand & Fabien Tripier, 2014. "Risk shocks and divergence between the Euro area and the US," Working Papers 2014-11, CEPII research center.
    8. Sabine Klinger & Enzo Weber, 2016. "Decomposing Beveridge Curve Dynamics By Correlated Unobserved Components," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(6), pages 877-894, December.
    9. Melvyn G. Coles & Dale T. Mortensen, 2016. "Equilibrium Labor Turnover, Firm Growth, and Unemployment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 347-363, January.
    10. Renato Faccini & Leonardo Melosi, 2022. "Pigouvian Cycles," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 281-318, April.
    11. Thomas Brand & Fabien Tripier, 2021. "Risk Shocks and Divergence between the Euro Area and the US in the Aftermath of the Great Recession," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 143, pages 137-163.
    12. Casares, Miguel & Vázquez, Jesús, 2018. "Why are labor markets in Spain and Germany so different?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 320-335.
    13. Crawley, Andrew & Welch, Sarah & Yung, Julieta, 2021. "Improving estimates of job matching efficiency with different measures of unemployment," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    14. Abbritti, Mirko & Consolo, Agostino & Weber, Sebastian, 2021. "Endogenous growth, downward wage rigidity and optimal inflation," Working Paper Series 2635, European Central Bank.
    15. Walsh, Carl E, 2014. "Multiple Objectives and Central Bank Tradeoffs Under Flexible Inflation Targeting," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt3pq021t5, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    16. Francesco Furlanetto & Nicolas Groshenny, "undated". "Mismatch Shocks and Unemployment During the Great Recession," School of Economics Working Papers 2015-14, University of Adelaide, School of Economics.
    17. Fabrizio Perri, 2012. "Comment on "Structural and Cyclical Forces in the Labor Market during the Great Recession: Cross-Country Evidence"," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2012, pages 405-414, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Klinger, Sabine & Weber, Enzo, 2014. "Decomposing Beveridge curve dynamics by correlated unobserved components: The impact of labour market reforms in Germany," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100499, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Ann M. Gansemer-Topf & Jillian Downey & Katherine Thompson & Ulrike Genschel, 2018. "Did the Recession Impact Student Success? Relationships of Finances, Staffing and Institutional Type on Retention," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 59(2), pages 174-197, March.
    20. Coles, M & Mortensen, DT, 2015. "Stochastic Unemployment with Dynamic Monopsony," Economics Discussion Papers 14457, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    21. Renato Faccini & Leonardo Melosi, 2018. "The Role of News about TFP in U.S. Recessions and Booms," Working Paper Series WP-2018-6, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    22. repec:esx:essedp:765 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Coles, Melvyn G. & Mortensen, Dale T., 2015. "The response of employment and wages to aggregate shocks: On-the-job search effect," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 7-17.
    24. Marine Salès, 2016. "Do Corporate Credit Conditions Alter Labor Market Dynamics? A SVAR Analysis in a Transatlantic Perspective," Working Papers hal-01333025, HAL.

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    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
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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