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The Cyclical Volatility of Labor Markets under Frictional Financial Markets

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  • Petrosky-Nadeau, Nicolas

    () (Carnegie Mellon University)

  • Wasmer, Etienne

    () (Sciences Po, Paris)

Abstract

Financial frictions are known to raise the volatility of economies to shocks (e.g. Bernanke and Gertler 1989). We follow this line of research to the labor literature concerned by the volatility of labor market outcomes to productivity shocks initiated by Shimer (2005): in an economy with search on credit and labor markets, a financial multiplier raises the elasticity of labor market tightness to productivity shocks. This multiplier increases with total financial costs and is minimized under a credit market Hosios-Pissarides rule. Using a flexible calibration method based on small perturbations, we find the parameter values to match the US share of the financial sector. Those values are far away from Hosios and lead to a financial accelerator of about 3.6 (exogenous wages) to 4.5 (endogenous wages). Both match Shimer (2005)'s elasticity of labor market tightness to productivity shocks. Financial frictions are thus an alternative to the "small labor surplus" assumption in Hagedorn and Manovskii (2008): we keep the value of wages over productivity below 0.78. We conclude that financial frictions are a good candidate to solve the volatility puzzle and rejoin Pissarides (2009) in arguing that hiring costs must be partly non-proportional to congestion in the labor market, which is the case of financial costs.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 5131.

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Length: 37 pages
Date of creation: Aug 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5131

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Keywords: search; financial imperfections; Shimer puzzle; macroeconomic volatility;

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References

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  1. Marcus Hagedorn & Iourii Manovskii, 2007. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies Revisited," IEW - Working Papers 351, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
  2. Mortensen, Dale T. & Nagypál, Éva, 2005. "More on Unemployment and Vacancy Fluctuations," IZA Discussion Papers 1765, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. Steven J. Davis & R. Jason Faberman & John Haltiwanger, 2006. "The Flow Approach to Labor Markets: New Data Sources and Micro-Macro Links," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 3-26, Summer.
  4. Simon G. Gilchrist & Ben Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 1994. "The financial accelerator and the flight to quality," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 94-18, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  5. Pierre Cahuc & Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2003. "Wage bargaining with on-the-job search : theory and evidence," Research Unit Working Papers 0212, Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquee, INRA.
  6. Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau, 2009. "Credit, Vacancies and Unemployment Fluctuations," GSIA Working Papers 2009-E27, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
  7. Delacroix, Alain, 2006. "A multisectorial matching model of unions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 573-596, April.
  8. Philippe Weil & Etienne Wasmer, 2004. "The macroeconomics of credit and labor market imperfections," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/13436, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
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Cited by:
  1. Wasmer, Etienne, 2011. "A Steady-State Model of a Non-Walrasian Economy with Three Imperfect Markets," IZA Discussion Papers 5758, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  2. Vincenzo Quadrini, 2011. "Financial frictions in macroeconomic fluctations," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue 3Q, pages 209-254.
  3. Giuseppe Ciccarone & Francesco Giuli & Danilo Liberati, 2012. "The effects of monetary policy shocks in credit and labor markets with search and matching frictions," Working Papers 151, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Public Economics.
  4. Nicholas Bloom & Max Floetotto & Nir Jaimovich & Itay Saporta-Eksten & Stephen J. Terry, 2012. "Really Uncertain Business Cycles," NBER Working Papers 18245, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau, . "TFP during a Credit Crunch," GSIA Working Papers 2010-E70, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
  6. Haefke, Christian & Reiter, Michael, 2012. "What Do Participation Fluctuations Tell Us About Labor Supply Elasticities?," Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 62055, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
  7. Michael Reiter & Christian Haefke, 2012. "What Do Participation Fluctuations Tell Us About Labor Supply Elasticities?," 2012 Meeting Papers 594, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  8. Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau & Etienne Wasmer, . "Macroeconomic Dynamics in a Model of Goods, Labor and Credit Market Frictions," GSIA Working Papers 2011-E6, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
  9. Petra Marotzke, 2011. "Macroeconomic Stability and Wage Inequality: A Model with Credit and Labor Market Frictions," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2011-38, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
  10. Dromel, Nicolas L. & Kolakez, Elie & Lehmann, Etienne, 2010. "Credit constraints and the persistence of unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 823-834, October.
  11. Etienne Wasmer & Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau, 2011. "Propagation in a Model of Goods, Labor and Financial Market Frictions," 2011 Meeting Papers 119, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  12. Pedro S. Amaral & Murat Tasci, 2012. "The cyclical behavior of equilibrium unemployment and vacancies across OECD countries," Working Paper 1236, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

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