Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Involuntary Unemployment and the Business Cycle

Contents:

Author Info

  • Christiano, Lawrence J.

    () (Northwestern University)

  • Trabrandt, Mathias

    () (European Central Bank)

  • Walentin, Karl

    () (Research Department, Central Bank of Sweden)

Abstract

Can a model with limited labor market insurance explain standard macro- and labor market data jointly? We seek to construct a monetary model in which: i) the unemployed are worse off than the employed, i.e. unemployment is involuntary and ii) the labor force participation rate varies with the business cycle. To illustrate key features of our model, we start with the simplest possible New Keynesian framework with no capital. We then integrate the model into a medium sized DSGE model and show that the resulting model does as well as existing models at accounting for the response of standard macroeconomic variables to monetary policy shocks and two technology shocks. In addition, the model does well at accounting for the response of the labor force and unemployment rate to these three shocks.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.riksbank.se/Documents/Rapporter/Working_papers/2012/rap_wp238_updated-120615.pdf
Download Restriction: no
File URL: http://www.riksbank.se/Documents/Rapporter/Working_papers/2012/rap_wp238_technical_appendix_updated_120615.pdf
File Function: Technical Appendix
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden) in its series Working Paper Series with number 238.

as in new window
Length: 69 pages
Date of creation: 01 Apr 2010
Date of revision: 01 Jun 2012
Handle: RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0238

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Sveriges Riksbank, SE-103 37 Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: 08 - 787 00 00
Fax: 08-21 05 31
Email:
Web page: http://www.riksbank.com/
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: DSGE; unemployment; labor force participation; business cycles; monetary policy; Bayesian estimation;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Carlos Thomas, 2007. "Search Frictions, Real Rigidities and Inflation Dynamics," CEP Discussion Papers dp0822, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  2. Nicolas Groshenny, 2009. "Evaluating a monetary business cycle model with unemployment for the euro area," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2009/08, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
  3. Casey B. Mulligan, 2001. "Aggregate Implications of Indivisible Labor," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 0(1), pages 4.
  4. Alessio J. G. Brown & Christian Merkl & Dennis Snower, 2009. "An Incentive Theory of Matching," Kiel Working Papers 1512, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
  5. Raj Chetty & Adam Looney, 2005. "Income Risk and the Benefits of Social Insurance: Evidence from Indonesia and the United States," NBER Working Papers 11708, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Lawrence J. Christiano & Mathias Trabandt & Karl Walentin, 2010. "Introducing financial frictions and unemployment into a small open economy model," CQER Working Paper 2010-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
  7. Lawrence Christiano & Cosmin Ilut & Roberto Motto & Massimo Rostagno, 2008. "Monetary policy and stock market boom-bust cycles," Working Paper Series 955, European Central Bank.
  8. 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.
  9. Lawrence J. Christiano & Mathias Trabandt & Karl Walentin, 2010. "Involuntary Unemployment and the Business Cycle," NBER Working Papers 15801, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. Marvin J. Barth III & Valerie A. Ramey, 2000. "The Cost Channel of Monetary Transmission," NBER Working Papers 7675, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Luigi Paciello, 2011. "Does Inflation Adjust Faster to Aggregate Technology Shocks than to Monetary Policy Shocks?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(8), pages 1663-1684, December.
  12. Sala, Luca & Söderström, Ulf & Trigari, Antonella, 2008. "Monetary Policy Under Uncertainty in an Estimated Model with Labour Market Frictions," CEPR Discussion Papers 6826, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  13. Mark Gertler & Luca Sala & Antonella Trigari, 2008. "An Estimated Monetary DSGE Model with Unemployment and Staggered Nominal Wage Bargaining," Working Papers 341, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
  14. Christopher J. Erceg & Dale W. Henderson & Andrew T. Levin, 1999. "Optimal monetary policy with staggered wage and price contracts," International Finance Discussion Papers 640, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  15. 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.
  16. Per Krusell & Toshihiko Mukoyama & Richard Rogerson & Aysegul Sahin, 2009. "A Three State Model of Worker Flows in General Equilibrium," NBER Working Papers 15251, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  17. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Mirko Wiederholt, 2009. "Optimal sticky prices under rational inattention," Working Paper Series 1009, European Central Bank.
  18. David Altig & Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Jesper Linde, 2005. "Firm-Specific Capital, Nominal Rigidities and the Business Cycle," NBER Working Papers 11034, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  19. Cosmin L. Ilut & Lawrence J. Christiano & Roberto Motto & Massimo Rostagno, 2010. "Monetary Policy and Stock Market Booms," Working Papers 10-69, Duke University, Department of Economics.
  20. Dupor, Bill & Han, Jing & Tsai, Yi-Chan, 2009. "What do technology shocks tell us about the New Keynesian paradigm?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 560-569, May.
  21. Kai Christoffel & Keith Kuester & Tobias Linzert, 2009. "The role of labor markets for Euro area monetary policy," Working Papers 09-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
  22. Andrew Atkeson & Christopher Phelan, 1994. "Reconsidering the Costs of Business Cycles with Incomplete Markets," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1994, Volume 9, pages 187-218 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  23. Marcelo Veracierto, 2008. "Establishments Dynamics and Matching Frictions in Classical Competitive Equilibrium," 2008 Meeting Papers 505, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  24. Sveen, Tommy & Weinke, Lutz, 2009. "Inflation and labor market dynamics revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1096-1100, November.
  25. Wouter J. den Haan & Garey Ramey & Joel Watson, 1997. "Job Destruction and Propagation of Shocks," NBER Working Papers 6275, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  26. Antonella Trigari, 2009. "Equilibrium Unemployment, Job Flows, and Inflation Dynamics," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(1), pages 1-33, 02.
  27. Christoffel, Kai & Costain, James & de Walque, Gregory & Kuester, Keith & Linzert, Tobias & Millard, Stephen & Pierrard, Olivier, 2009. "Inflation dynamics with labour market matching: assessing alternative specifications," Bank of England working papers 375, Bank of England.
  28. Alexopoulos, Michelle, 2004. "Unemployment and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 277-298, March.
  29. Lawrence J. Christiano & Mathias Trabandt & Karl Walentin, 2010. "DSGE Models for Monetary Policy Analysis," NBER Working Papers 16074, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  30. Arabinda Basistha & Richard Startz, 2004. "Measuring the NAIRU with Reduced Uncertainty: A Multiple Indicator-Common Component Approach," Working Papers UWEC-2004-22, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
  31. Per Krusell & Toshihiko Mukoyama & Richard Rogerson & Aysegul Sahin, 2008. "Aggregate Implications of Indivisible Labor, Incomplete Markets, and Labor Market Frictions," NBER Working Papers 13871, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  32. Jonathan A. Parker & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2009. "Who Bears Aggregate Fluctuations and How?," NBER Working Papers 14665, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  33. David Altig & Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Jesper Linde, 2005. "Online Appendix to "Firm-Specific Capital, Nominal Rigidities and the Business Cycle"," Technical Appendices 09-191, Review of Economic Dynamics.
  34. Kai Christoffel & Keith Kuester, 2008. "Resuscitating the wage channel in models with unemployment fluctuations," Working Paper Series 923, European Central Bank.
  35. Hopenhayn, Hugo A & Nicolini, Juan Pablo, 1997. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 412-38, April.
  36. Andolfatto, David, 1996. "Business Cycles and Labor-Market Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 112-32, March.
  37. Yun, Tack, 1996. "Nominal price rigidity, money supply endogeneity, and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 345-370, April.
  38. Mirko Wiederholt, 2010. "rational inattention," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Palgrave Macmillan.
  39. Imrohoruglu, Ayse, 1989. "Cost of Business Cycles with Indivisibilities and Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1364-83, December.
  40. Sveen, Tommy & Weinke, Lutz, 2008. "New Keynesian perspectives on labor market dynamics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 921-930, July.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Involuntary Unemployment and the Business Cycle
    by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2010-05-16 23:30:32
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0238

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Lena Löfgren).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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