IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmac/v12y2020i1p310-43.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Weak Job Recovery in a Macro Model of Search and Recruiting Intensity

Author

Listed:
  • Sylvain Leduc
  • Zheng Liu

Abstract

We show that cyclical fluctuations in search and recruiting intensity are quantitatively important for explaining the weak job recovery from the Great Recession. We demonstrate this result using an estimated labor search model that features endogenous search and recruiting intensity. Since the textbook model with free entry implies constant recruiting intensity, we introduce a cost of vacancy creation, so that firms respond to aggregate shocks by adjusting both vacancies and recruiting intensity. Fluctuations in search and recruiting intensity driven by shocks to productivity and the discount factor help bridge the gap between the actual and model-predicted job filling rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Sylvain Leduc & Zheng Liu, 2020. "The Weak Job Recovery in a Macro Model of Search and Recruiting Intensity," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 310-343, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:12:y:2020:i:1:p:310-43
    DOI: 10.1257/mac.20170176
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20170176
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20170176.data
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20170176.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20170176.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/mac.20170176?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Faust, Jon & Gupta, Abhishek, 2010. "Posterior Predictive Analysis for Evaluating DSGE Models," MPRA Paper 26721, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 25-49, March.
    3. Sungbae An & Frank Schorfheide, 2007. "Bayesian Analysis of DSGE Models," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2-4), pages 113-172.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zuchuat, Jeremy & Lalive, Rafael & Osikominu, Aderonke & Pesaresi, Lorenzo & Zweimüller, Josef, 2023. "Duration Dependence in Finding a Job: Applications, Interviews, and Job Offers," IZA Discussion Papers 16602, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Jonathan Créchet & Étienne Lalé & Linas Tarasonis, 2023. "Life-Cycle Worker Flows and Cross-country Differences in Aggregate Employment," Working Papers 2306E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    3. Bilenkisi, Fikret, 2024. "Uncertainty, labour force participation and job search," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    4. Carlos Carrillo-Tudela & Hermann Gartner & Leo Kaas, 2023. "Recruitment Policies, Job-Filling Rates, and Matching Efficiency," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(6), pages 2413-2459.
    5. Robert E. Hall & Marianna Kudlyak, 2022. "Why Has the US Economy Recovered So Consistently from Every Recession in the Past 70 Years?," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 1-55.
    6. Matsue, Toyoki, 2025. "Strategy for securing employment that considers job filling, separation, and productivity shocks," MPRA Paper 123533, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Uemura, Yuki, 2024. "Job search intensity and wage rigidity in business cycles," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Den Haan, Wouter J. & Freund, Lukas B. & Rendahl, Pontus, 2021. "Volatile hiring: uncertainty in search and matching models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-18.
    9. 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.
    10. Isabel Cairó & Hess T. Chung & Francesco Ferrante & Cristina Fuentes-Albero & Camilo Morales-Jimenez & Damjan Pfajfar, 2023. "Endogenous Labor Supply in an Estimated New-Keynesian Model: Nominal versus Real Rigidities," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2023-069, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. Haefke, Christian & Reiter, Michael, 2020. "Long Live the Vacancy," GLO Discussion Paper Series 654, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    12. Ravenna, Federico & Walsh, Carl, 2020. "Worker heterogeneity, selection, and employment dynamics in the face of aggregate demand and pandemic shocks," CEPR Discussion Papers 15043, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. He, Chao & Fan, Xiaodong, 2024. "The paradox of search intensity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    14. Wilhelm, Stefan, 2023. "Efficiency of short-time work schemes and the role of monetary policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    15. Steven J. Davis & Brenda Samaniego de la Parra, 2024. "Application Flows," NBER Working Papers 32320, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Arnd Kölling, 2022. "Shortage of Skilled Labor, Unions and the Wage Premium: A Regression Analysis with Establishment Panel Data for Germany," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 239-259, June.
    17. Forsythe, Eliza & Weinstein, Russell, 2021. "Recruiting Intensity, Hires, and Vacancies: Evidence from Firm-Level Data," IZA Discussion Papers 14138, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Chris Martin & Magdalyn Okolo, 2022. "Modelling the Differing Impacts of Covid‐19 in the UK Labour Market," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(5), pages 994-1017, October.
    19. M Alper Çenesiz & Luís Guimarães, 2022. "The cyclicality of job search effort in matching models [Labor supply in the past, present, and future: a Balan ced-Growth perspective]," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(4), pages 1195-1213.
    20. Josué Diwambuena & Raquel Fonseca & Stefan Schubert, 2023. "Labor Market Institutions, Productivity, and the Business Cycle: An Application to Italy," Cahiers de recherche / Working Papers 2302, Chaire de recherche sur les enjeux économiques intergénérationnels / Research Chair in Intergenerational Economics.
    21. Yuki Uemura, 2022. "Job Search Intensity and Wage Rigidity in Business Cycles," KIER Working Papers 1078, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    22. Federico Ravenna & Carl E. Walsh, 2022. "Worker Heterogeneity, Selection, and Unemployment Dynamics in a Pandemic," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(S1), pages 113-155, February.
    23. Brenčič, Vera, 2024. "Distribution of vacancies and new hires across employers: Implications for job offers, skill requirements, and employers’ search outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    24. Kölling, Arnd, 2023. "Does skill shortage pay off for nursing staff in Germany? Wage premiums for hiring problems, industrial relations, and profitability," MPRA Paper 116205, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Alisdair McKay, "undated". "Idiosyncratic risk, insurance, and aggregate consumption dynamics: a likelihood perspective," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 2013-013, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    2. Sala, Luca & Söderström, Ulf & Trigari, Antonella, 2008. "Monetary policy under uncertainty in an estimated model with labor market frictions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 983-1006, July.
    3. Marcus Moelbak Ingholt, 2017. "House Prices, Geographical Mobility, and Unemployment," Discussion Papers 17-06, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    4. Mark Gertler & Luca Sala & Antonella Trigari, 2008. "An Estimated Monetary DSGE Model with Unemployment and Staggered Nominal Wage Bargaining," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(8), pages 1713-1764, December.
    5. Di Pace, Federico & Villa, Stefania, 2016. "Factor complementarity and labour market dynamics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 70-112.
    6. Krause, Michael U. & Lopez-Salido, David & Lubik, Thomas A., 2008. "Inflation dynamics with search frictions: A structural econometric analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 892-916, July.
    7. Alejandro Justiniano & Claudio Michelacci, 2011. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies in the US and Europe," NBER Working Papers 17429, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. 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.
    9. Toshihiko Mukoyama & Mototsugu Shintani & Kazuhiro Teramoto, 2021. "Cyclical Part‐Time Employment in an Estimated New Keynesian Model with Search Frictions," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(8), pages 1929-1968, December.
    10. Borys, Paweł & Doligalski, Paweł & Kopiec, Paweł, 2021. "The quantitative importance of technology and demand shocks for unemployment fluctuations in a shopping economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    11. Cheremukhin, Anton A. & Restrepo-Echavarria, Paulina, 2014. "The labor wedge as a matching friction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 71-92.
    12. Mumtaz, Haroon & Zanetti, Francesco, 2015. "Factor adjustment costs: A structural investigation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 341-355.
    13. Konstantinos Theodoridis & Francesco Zanetti, 2016. "News shocks and labour market dynamics in matching models," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 49(3), pages 906-930, August.
    14. Julien Albertini & Güneş Kamber & Michael Kirker, 2012. "Estimated Small Open Economy Model With Frictional Unemployment," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(2), pages 326-353, May.
    15. Alejandro Justiniano & Claudio Michelacci, 2012. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies in the United States and Europe," NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages 169-235.
    16. Christian Schoder, 2017. "An estimated Dynamic Stochastic Disequilibrium model of Euro-Area unemployment," Working Papers 1725, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    17. Pedro Gomes, 2009. "Labour market effects of public sector employment and wages," 2009 Meeting Papers 313, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Josué Diwambuena & Raquel Fonseca & Stefan Schubert, 2021. "Italian Labour Frictions and Wage Rigidities in an Estimated DSGE," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS88, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    19. Chun-Hung Kuo & Hiroaki Miyamoto, 2016. "Unemployment and Wage Rigidity in Japan: A DSGE Model Perspective," Working Papers EMS_2016_06, Research Institute, International University of Japan.
    20. Negro, Marco Del & Schorfheide, Frank, 2013. "DSGE Model-Based Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 57-140, Elsevier.

    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
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    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:aea:aejmac:v:12:y:2020:i:1:p:310-43. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.