IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/6501.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor-Market Frictions and Employment Fluctuations

Author

Listed:
  • Robert E. Hall

Abstract

The labor market occupies center stage in modern theories of fluctuations. The most important phenomenon to explain and understand in a recession is the sharp decline in employment and jump in unemployment. This chapter for the Handbook of Macroeconomics considers explanations based on frictions in the labor market. Earlier research within the real business cycle paradigm considered frictionless labor markets where fluctuations in the volume of work effort represented substitution by households between work in the market and activities at home. A preliminary section of the chapter discusses why frictionless models are incomplete they fail to account for either the magnitude or persistence of fluctuations in employment. And the frictionless models fail completely to describe unemployment. The evidence suggests strongly that consideration of unemployment as a third use of time is critical for a realistic model. The two elements of a theory of unemployment are a mechanism for workers to lose or leave their jobs and an explanation for the time required for them to find new jobs. Theories of mechanism design or of continuous re-bargaining of employment terms provide the first. The theory of job search together with efficiency wages and related issues provides the second. Modern macro models incorporating these features come much closer than their predecessors to realistic and rigorous explanations of the magnitude and persistence of fluctuations.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert E. Hall, 1998. "Labor-Market Frictions and Employment Fluctuations," NBER Working Papers 6501, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6501
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6501.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hall, Robert E, 1982. "The Importance of Lifetime Jobs in the U.S. Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(4), pages 716-724, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Nakabayashi, Masaki, 2011. "Schooling, employer learning, and internal labor market effect: Wage dynamics and human capital investment in the Japanese steel industry, 1930-1960s," MPRA Paper 30597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Peter Chinloy, 1989. "Measuring labor cost for productivity comparison," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 5-19, March.
    3. Leonard, Jonathan S., 1987. "Technological Change and the Extent of Frictional and Structural Unemployment," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt9538f3v2, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    4. Moritz Kuhn, 2017. "The Research Agenda: Moritz Kuhn on Understanding income and wealth inequality," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(1), April.
    5. Pascal Michaillat & Emmanuel Saez, 2015. "Aggregate Demand, Idle Time, and Unemployment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 507-569.
    6. Abraham, Katharine G & Farber, Henry S, 1987. "Job Duration, Seniority, and Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 278-297, June.
    7. Steven J. Davis & John Haltiwanger, 1998. "Measuring Gross Worker and Job Flows," NBER Chapters, in: Labor Statistics Measurement Issues, pages 77-122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. repec:pri:cepsud:171farber is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Katharine G. Abraham & Susan N. Houseman, 1993. "Job Security and Work Force Adjustment: How Different are U.S. and Japanese Practices?," Book chapters authored by Upjohn Institute researchers, in: Christopher F. Buechtemann (ed.),Employment Security and Labor Market Behavior: Interdisciplinary Approaches and International Evidence, pages 180-199, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    10. Lars Ljungqvist & Thomas J. Sargent, 1998. "The European Unemployment Dilemma," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(3), pages 514-550, June.
    11. Boeri, Tito, 1999. "Enforcement of employment security regulations, on-the-job search and unemployment duration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 65-89, January.
    12. Olivia S. Mitchell & Gary S. Fields, 1985. "Rewards for Continued Work: The Economic Incentives for Postponing Retirement," NBER Chapters, in: Horizontal Equity, Uncertainty, and Economic Well-Being, pages 269-292, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Philip Jung & Moritz Kuhn, 2019. "Earnings Losses and Labor Mobility Over the Life Cycle," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 678-724.
    14. Karen E. Needels & Walter Nicholson, 1999. "An Analysis of Unemployment Insurance Durations Since the 1990-1992 Recession," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 555a1aa8ba144125ae9c715fe, Mathematica Policy Research.
    15. Charles Brown & James L. Medoff, 2003. "Firm Age and Wages," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(3), pages 677-698, July.
    16. Bayo-Moriones, Alberto & Galdon-Sanchez, Jose Enrique & Martinez-de-Morentin, Sara, 2008. "What Are the Factors Behind Pay Settlements? Evidence from Spanish and British Data," IZA Discussion Papers 3401, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Ernst Fehr & Martin Brown & Christian Zehnder, 2009. "On Reputation: A Microfoundation of Contract Enforcement and Price Rigidity," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(536), pages 333-353, March.
    18. Xavier ST‐DENIS, 2021. "The changing importance of lifetime jobs in the United Kingdom," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 160(2), pages 243-269, June.
    19. Kato, Takao, 2001. "The End of Lifetime Employment in Japan?: Evidence from National Surveys and Field Research," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 489-514, December.
    20. Christian Calmès, 2003. "Poignée de main invisible et persistance des cycles économiques : une revue de la littérature," Staff Working Papers 03-40, Bank of Canada.
    21. Hardes, Heinz-Dieter, 1989. "Zur Bedeutung längerfristiger Arbeitsbeziehungen und betriebsinterner Teilarbeitsmärkte : vertragstheoretische Überlegungen und arbeitsmarktpolitische Implikationen," Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 22(4), pages 540-552.

    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

    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:nbr:nberwo:6501. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.