IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/cepsud/234.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Shopping Externalities and Self-Fulfilling Unemployment Fluctuations

Author

Listed:
  • Greg Kaplan

    (Princeton University)

  • Guido Menzio

    (University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract

We propose a novel theory of self-fulfilling fluctuations in the labor market. A firm employing an additional worker generates positive externalities on other firms, because employed workers have more income to spend and have less time to shop for low prices than unemployed workers. We quantify these shopping externalities and show that they are sufficiently strong to create strategic complementarities in the employment decisions of different firms and to generate multiple rational expectations equilibria. Equilibria differ with respect to the agents' (rational) expectations about future unemployment. We show that negative shocks to the agents' expectations lead to fluctuations in vacancies, unemployment, labor productivity and the stock market that closely resemble those observed in the US during the Great Recession.

Suggested Citation

  • Greg Kaplan & Guido Menzio, 2013. "Shopping Externalities and Self-Fulfilling Unemployment Fluctuations," Working Papers 1461, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:cepsud:234
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://gceps.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/234kaplan.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan B. Krueger & Andreas Mueller, 2008. "Job Search and Unemployment Insurance: New Evidence from Time Use Data," Working Papers 1070, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    2. Krueger, Alan B. & Mueller, Andreas, 2010. "Job search and unemployment insurance: New evidence from time use data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(3-4), pages 298-307, April.
    3. Mortensen, Dale & Pissarides, Christopher, 2011. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    4. Benhabib Jess & Farmer Roger E. A., 1994. "Indeterminacy and Increasing Returns," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 19-41, June.
    5. Roger Farmer, 2012. "The Stock Market Crash of 2008 Caused the Great Recession," 2012 Meeting Papers 145, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Jess Benhabib & Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2015. "Sentiments and Aggregate Demand Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 549-585, March.
    7. Roger E. A. Farmer & Daniel F. Waggoner & Tao Zha, 2010. "Generalizing the Taylor Principle: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 608-617, March.
    8. Christiano, Lawrence J. & G. Harrison, Sharon, 1999. "Chaos, sunspots and automatic stabilizers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 3-31, August.
    9. Russell Cooper & Andrew John, 1988. "Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(3), pages 441-463.
    10. Guido Menzio & Shouyong Shi, 2011. "Efficient Search on the Job and the Business Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(3), pages 468-510.
    11. Diamond, Peter A, 1982. "Aggregate Demand Management in Search Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(5), pages 881-894, October.
    12. Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 2006. "Were There Regime Switches in U.S. Monetary Policy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 54-81, March.
    13. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    14. Farmer, Roger E.A., 2012. "The stock market crash of 2008 caused the Great Recession: Theory and evidence," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 693-707.
    15. Roberts, John, 1987. "An Equilibrium Model with Involuntary Unemployment at Flexible, Competitive Prices and Wages," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 856-874, December.
    16. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2009. "The Unemployment Volatility Puzzle: Is Wage Stickiness the Answer?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1339-1369, September.
    17. J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    18. Farmer Roger E. A. & Guo Jang-Ting, 1994. "Real Business Cycles and the Animal Spirits Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 42-72, June.
    19. Melvin Stephens, 2004. "Job Loss Expectations, Realizations, and Household Consumption Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 253-269, February.
    20. Allen Head & Lucy Qian Liu & Guido Menzio & Randall Wright, 2012. "Sticky Prices: A New Monetarist Approach," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(5), pages 939-973, October.
    21. Boldrin, Michele & Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1993. "A dynamic equilibrium model of search, production, and exchange," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(5-6), pages 723-758.
    22. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2013. "Time Use during the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1664-1696, August.
    23. Melvin Stephens, 2001. "The Long-Run Consumption Effects Of Earnings Shocks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(1), pages 28-36, February.
    24. Rotemberg, Julio J. & Woodford, Michael, 1999. "The cyclical behavior of prices and costs," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 1051-1135, Elsevier.
    25. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, 1988. "Multiple Expectational Equilibria Under Monopolistic Competition," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(4), pages 695-713.
    26. Alan T. Sorensen, 2000. "Equilibrium Price Dispersion in Retail Markets for Prescription Drugs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(4), pages 833-862, August.
    27. Gerard R. Butters, 1977. "Equilibrium Distributions of Sales and Advertising Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 465-491.
    28. Samuel Bentolila & Andrea Ichino, 2008. "Unemployment and consumption near and far away from the Mediterranean," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(2), pages 255-280, April.
    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. repec:pri:cepsud:234kaplan is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Greg Kaplan & Guido Menzio, 2016. "Shopping Externalities and Self-Fulfilling Unemployment Fluctuations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(3), pages 771-825.
    3. Christiano, Lawrence J. & G. Harrison, Sharon, 1999. "Chaos, sunspots and automatic stabilizers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 3-31, August.
    4. Jaimovich, Nir, 2007. "Firm dynamics and markup variations: Implications for sunspot equilibria and endogenous economic fluctuations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 300-325, November.
    5. Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2006. "Imperfect competition and sunspots," Working Papers 2006-015, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    6. Kazuo Mino, 2017. "Sunspot-Driven Business Cycles: An Overview," KIER Working Papers 973, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    7. 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.
    8. Etro, Federico, 2017. "Research in economics and macroeconomics," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 373-383.
    9. Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2007. "Incomplete information and self-fulfilling prophecies," Working Papers 2007-033, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    10. Sniekers, F.J.T., 2013. "Endogenous Beveridge cycles and the volatility of unemployment," CeNDEF Working Papers 13-12, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    11. Matthias S. Hertweck & Vivien Lewis & Stefania Villa, 2021. "Going the Extra Mile: Effort by Workers and Job‐Seekers," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(8), pages 2099-2127, December.
    12. Cooper, Russell W. & Johri, Alok, 1997. "Dynamic complementarities: A quantitative analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 97-119, September.
    13. Athreya, Kartik B., 2014. "Big Ideas in Macroeconomics: A Nontechnical View," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262019736, December.
    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. Florian Sniekers, 2018. "Persistence And Volatility Of Beveridge Cycles," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(2), pages 665-698, May.
    16. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5l6uh8ogmqildh09h481l2tb5 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Russell Cooper & Andrew John, 2000. "Imperfect competition and macroeconomics : Theory and quantitative implications," Cahiers d'Économie Politique, Programme National Persée, vol. 37(1), pages 289-328.
    18. Farmer, Roger E.A., 2016. "The Evolution Of Endogenous Business Cycles," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 544-557, March.
    19. Fagnart, Jean-Francois & Pierrard, O. & Sneessens, Henri R., 2007. "Microeconomic uncertainty and macroeconomic indeterminacy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(6), pages 1564-1588, August.
    20. Kircher, Philipp & Wright, Randall & Julien, Benoit & Guerrieri, Veronica, 2017. "Directed Search: A Guided Tour," CEPR Discussion Papers 12315, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Chen, Guo & Korpeoglu, C. Gizem & Spear, Stephen E., 2017. "Price stickiness and markup variations in market games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 95-103.
    22. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5por5bt92h8l0bc7ls4elmcc0b is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Harrison, Sharon G., 2001. "Indeterminacy in a model with sector-specific externalities," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 747-764, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    vacancies; unemployment; labor productivity; stock market; Great Recession;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J60 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - General
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy

    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:pri:cepsud:234. 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: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceprius.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.