IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/dyncon/v47y2014icp39-53.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Productivity insurance: The role of unemployment benefits in a multi-sector model

Author

Listed:
  • Fuller, David L.
  • Kudlyak, Marianna
  • Lkhagvasuren, Damba

Abstract

We construct a multi-sector search and matching model where the unemployed receives idiosyncratic productivity shocks that make working in certain sectors more productive than in the others. Agents must decide which sector to search in and face moving costs when leaving their current sector for another. In this environment, unemployment is associated with an additional risk: low future wages if mobility costs preclude search in the appropriate sector. This introduces a new role for unemployment benefits – productivity insurance while unemployed. For plausible parameterizations unemployment benefits increase per-worker productivity. In addition, the welfare-maximizing benefit level decreases as moving costs increase.

Suggested Citation

  • Fuller, David L. & Kudlyak, Marianna & Lkhagvasuren, Damba, 2014. "Productivity insurance: The role of unemployment benefits in a multi-sector model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 39-53.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:47:y:2014:i:c:p:39-53
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jedc.2014.07.015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016518891400178X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jedc.2014.07.015?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcus Hagedorn & Iourii Manovskii, 2008. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies Revisited," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1692-1706, September.
    2. Moscarini, Giuseppe & Vella, Francis, 2008. "Occupational Mobility and the Business Cycle," IZA Discussion Papers 3369, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Lkhagvasuren, Damba, 2012. "Big locational unemployment differences despite high labor mobility," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(8), pages 798-814.
    4. Fatih Guvenen, 2009. "An Empirical Investigation of Labor Income Processes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(1), pages 58-79, January.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Robert Shimer, 1999. "Efficient Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(5), pages 893-928, October.
    6. Christopher A. Pissarides & Barbara Petrongolo, 2001. "Looking into the Black Box: A Survey of the Matching Function," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 390-431, June.
    7. Merz, Monika, 1999. "Heterogeneous job-matches and the cyclical behavior of labor turnover," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 91-124, February.
    8. Marimon, Ramon & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 1999. "Unemployment vs. Mismatch of Talents: Reconsidering Unemployment Benefits," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(455), pages 266-291, April.
    9. Giuseppe Moscarini & Kaj Thomsson, 2007. "Occupational and Job Mobility in the US," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 109(4), pages 807-836, December.
    10. Kurt Mitman & Stanislav Rabinovich, 2011. "Pro-Cyclical Unemployment Benefits? Optimal Policy in an Equilibrium Business Cycle Model," PIER Working Paper Archive 11-010, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    11. J. J. McCall, 1970. "Economics of Information and Job Search," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(1), pages 113-126.
    12. Acemoglu, Daron & Shimer, Robert, 2000. "Productivity gains from unemployment insurance," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1195-1224, June.
    13. Kevin M. Murphy & Robert H. Topel, 1987. "The Evolution of Unemployment in the United States: 1968–1985," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1987, Volume 2, pages 11-68, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 25-49, March.
    15. Lkhagvasuren, Damba, 2014. "Education, mobility and the college wage premium," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 159-173.
    16. Jovanovic, Boyan & Moffitt, Robert, 1990. "An Estimate of a Sectoral Model of Labor Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 827-852, August.
    17. Dale Mortensen & Eva Nagypal, 2007. "More on Unemployment and Vacancy Fluctuations," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(3), pages 327-347, July.
    18. Hopenhayn, Hugo A & Nicolini, Juan Pablo, 1997. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 412-438, April.
    19. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2000. "Equilibrium Unemployment Theory, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262161877, December.
    20. Mark Bils & Yongsung Chang & Sun-Bin Kim, 2011. "Worker Heterogeneity and Endogenous Separations in a Matching Model of Unemployment Fluctuations," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 128-154, January.
    21. Damba Lkhagvasuren, 2005. "Big Locational Differences in Unemployment Despite High Labor Mobility," Working Papers 12002, Concordia University, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2012.
    22. David Fuller & Damba Lkhagvasuren & Antoine Terracol & Stephane Auray, 2014. "A Dynamic Analysis of Sectoral Mobility, Worker Mismatch, and the Wage-Tenure Profile," 2014 Meeting Papers 876, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    23. Álvarez-Parra, Fernando & Sánchez, Juan M., 2009. "Unemployment insurance with a hidden labor market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 954-967, October.
    24. Andolfatto, David & Gomme, Paul, 1996. "Unemployment insurance and labor-market activity in Canada," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 47-82, June.
    25. Gueorgui Kambourov & Iourii Manovskii, 2009. "Occupational Mobility and Wage Inequality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(2), pages 731-759.
    26. Moen, Espen R, 1997. "Competitive Search Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 385-411, April.
    27. Giuseppe Moscarini, 2001. "Excess Worker Reallocation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(3), pages 593-612.
    28. A. D. Roy, 1951. "Some Thoughts On The Distribution Of Earnings," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 135-146.
    29. Lucas, Robert Jr. & Prescott, Edward C., 1974. "Equilibrium search and unemployment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 188-209, February.
    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. Productivity insurance: the role of unemployment benefits in a multi-sector model
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2013-09-28 07:47:04

    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. Ludo Visschers & Carlos Carrillo-Tudela, 2011. "Unemployment and Endogenous Reallocation over the Business Cycle," 2011 Meeting Papers 1101, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Carlos Carrillo‐Tudela & Ludo Visschers, 2023. "Unemployment and Endogenous Reallocation Over the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(3), pages 1119-1153, May.
    3. Paul Gomme & Damba Lkhagvasuren, 2011. "The Cyclicality of Search Intensity in a Competitive Search Model," Working Papers 11003, Concordia University, Department of Economics.
    4. Lkhagvasuren, Damba, 2012. "Big locational unemployment differences despite high labor mobility," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(8), pages 798-814.
    5. Damba Lkhagvasuren, 2005. "Big Locational Differences in Unemployment Despite High Labor Mobility," Working Papers 12002, Concordia University, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2012.
    6. Stéphane Auray, David Fuller & Damba lkhagvasuren & Antoine Terracol, 2014. "A Dynamic Analysis of Sectoral Mobility, Worker Mismatc and the Wage-Tenure Profiles," Working Papers 2014-12, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    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. Damba Lkhagvasuren & Roy Nitulescu, 2013. "Sectoral Mobility and Unemployment with Heterogeneous Moving Costs," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 339-358, September.
    9. Lalé, Etienne, 2017. "Worker reallocation across occupations: Confronting data with theory," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 51-68.
    10. David Andolfatto, 2007. "Search Models of Unemployment," Discussion Papers dp07-01, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    11. Yashiv, Eran, 2007. "Labor search and matching in macroeconomics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1859-1895, November.
    12. Carrillo-Tudela, Carlos & Visschers, Ludo, 2014. "Unemployment and Endogenous Reallocation over the Business Cycle," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-35, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    13. Auray Stéphane & Fuller David & Lkhagvasuren Damba & Terracol Antoine, 2017. "Dynamic Comparative Advantage, Directed Mobility Across Sectors, and Wages," Working Papers 2017-59, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    14. Andreas Hornstein & Per Krusell & Giovanni L. Violante, 2011. "Frictional Wage Dispersion in Search Models: A Quantitative Assessment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 2873-2898, December.
    15. Kohlbrecher, Britta & Merkl, Christian & Nordmeier, Daniela, 2016. "Revisiting the matching function," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 350-374.
    16. Tsasa, Jean-Paul K., 2022. "Labor market volatility in a fully specified RBC search model: An analytical investigation," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    17. Plamen Nemov, 2015. "Regional Reallocation and Housing Markets in a Model of Frictional Migration," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(4), pages 863-880, October.
    18. Richard Rogerson & Robert Shimer & Randall Wright, 2004. "Search-Theoretic Models of the Labor Market-A Survey," NBER Working Papers 10655, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Keisuke Kawata & Kentaro Nakajima & Yasuhiro Sato, 2013. "Analyzing the impact of labor market integration," IDEC DP2 Series 3-7, Hiroshima University, Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation (IDEC).
    20. Lalé, Etienne, 2018. "Loss of skill and labor market fluctuations," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 20-31.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment insurance; Search; Mobility; Productivity; Multi-sector model; Sectoral mismatch;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • 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
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

    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:eee:dyncon:v:47:y:2014:i:c:p:39-53. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jedc .

    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.