IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pia/review/v3y2012i1n2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Labour Market Imperfections, "Divine Coincidence" and Volatility of Employment and Inflation

Author

Listed:
  • Mirko Abbritti
  • Andrea Boitani
  • Mirella Damiani

Abstract

The dynamic general equilibrium model with hiring costs presented in this paper delivers involuntary unemployment in the steady state as well as involuntary fluctuations in unemployment. The existence of hiring frictions introduces externalities that, in turn, entail the breakdown of the “divine coincidence” without assuming real wage rigidity. We are able to show that our model with labour market imperfections outperforms the standard New Keynesian model as for the persistence of responses to monetary shocks. We also attempt an analysis of the volatility of two economies, differing in their “degrees of imperfection”. It turns out that “rigid” economies exhibit less unemployment volatility and more inflation volatility than “flexible” economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Mirko Abbritti & Andrea Boitani & Mirella Damiani, 2012. "Labour Market Imperfections, "Divine Coincidence" and Volatility of Employment and Inflation," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 3(1).
  • Handle: RePEc:pia:review:v:3:y:2012:i:1:n:2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://rei.unipg.it/rei/article/view/58
    Download Restriction: Requires registration. Users must be registered and log in to access full text
    ---><---

    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. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2000. "Sticky Price Models of the Business Cycle: Can the Contract Multiplier Solve the Persistence Problem?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1151-1180, September.
    2. Mortensen, Dale & Pissarides, Christopher, 2011. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    3. Ravenna, Federico & Walsh, Carl E., 2008. "Vacancies, unemployment, and the Phillips curve," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1494-1521, November.
    4. Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2007. "Macroeconomic Modeling for Monetary Policy Evaluation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 25-46, Fall.
    5. 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.
    6. Marvin Goodfriend & Robert G. King, 1997. "The New Neoclassical Synthesis and the Role of Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 231-296, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    8. Harald Uhlig, 1995. "A toolkit for analyzing nonlinear dynamic stochastic models easily," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 101, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    9. Krause, Michael U. & Lubik, Thomas A., 2007. "The (ir)relevance of real wage rigidity in the New Keynesian model with search frictions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 706-727, April.
    10. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    11. Joaquim Oliveira Martins & Stefano Scarpetta & Dirk Pilat, 1996. "Mark-Up Ratios in Manufacturing Industries: Estimates for 14 OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 162, OECD Publishing.
    12. Marvin Goodfriend, 2007. "How the World Achieved Consensus on Monetary Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 47-68, Fall.
    13. Antonella Trigari, 2004. "Labour Market Search, Wage Bargaining and Inflation Dynamics," Working Papers 268, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    14. Carl E. Walsh, 2005. "Labor Market Search, Sticky Prices, and Interest Rate Policies," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(4), pages 829-849, October.
    15. Olivier Blanchard & Jordi Galí, 2007. "Real Wage Rigidities and the New Keynesian Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 35-65, February.
    16. Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2005. "Trends and cycles in the Euro Area: how much heterogeneity and should we worry about it?," Macroeconomics 0511016, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Galí, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Inflation Dynamics: A Structural Economic Analysis," CEPR Discussion Papers 2246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Jean-Pierre Danthine & Andre Kurmann, 2004. "Fair Wages in a New Keynesian Model of the Business Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 7(1), pages 107-142, January.
    19. Faia, Ester, 2009. "Ramsey monetary policy with labor market frictions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 570-581, May.
    20. Peter Howitt, 1988. "Business Cycles With Costly Search and Recruiting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 103(1), pages 147-165.
    21. Alexopoulos, Michelle, 2004. "Unemployment and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 277-298, March.
    22. Christoffel, Kai & Kuester, Keith & Linzert, Tobias, 2006. "Identifying the role of labor markets for monetary policy in an estimated DSGE model," CFS Working Paper Series 2007/07, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    23. Christoffel, Kai & Linzert, Tobias, 2005. "The role of real wage rigidity and labor market frictions for unemployment and inflation dynamics," Working Paper Series 556, European Central Bank.
    24. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 25-49, March.
    25. Pencavel, John, 1987. "Labor supply of men: A survey," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 3-102, Elsevier.
    26. McCallum, Bennett T & Nelson, Edward, 1999. "An Optimizing IS-LM Specification for Monetary Policy and Business Cycle Analysis," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(3), pages 296-316, August.
    27. Olivier Blanchard, 2006. "European unemployment: the evolution of facts and ideas [‘The macroeconomics of low inflation’]," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 21(45), pages 6-59.
    28. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    29. Blanchard, Olivier & Galί, Jordi, 2006. "A New Keynesian Model with Unemployment," Kiel Working Papers 1335, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    30. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    31. Ben S. Bernanke & Michael Woodford, 2004. "The Inflation-Targeting Debate," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bern04-1, October.
    32. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Inflation dynamics: A structural econometric analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 195-222, October.
    33. Mortensen, Dale T. & Pissarides, Christopher A., 1999. "New developments in models of search in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 39, pages 2567-2627, Elsevier.
    34. Carlton, Dennis W, 1986. "The Rigidity of Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 637-658, September.
    35. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    36. Galí, Jordi, 2002. "New Perspectives on Monetary Policy, Inflation and the Business Cycle," CEPR Discussion Papers 3210, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    37. Jeanne, Olivier, 1998. "Generating real persistent effects of monetary shocks: How much nominal rigidity do we really need?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1009-1032, June.
    38. M. H. Khalil Timamy, 2005. "Debate," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(104-105), pages 383-393, June.
    39. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
    40. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, September.
    41. Robert E. Hall, 2005. "Employment Fluctuations with Equilibrium Wage Stickiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 50-65, March.
    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. Maria Flavia Ambrosanio & Massimo Bordignon & Floriana Cerniglia, 2010. "Constitutional Reforms, Fiscal Decentralization and Regional Fiscal Flows in Italy," Chapters, in: Núria Bosch & Marta Espasa & Albert Solé Ollé (ed.), The Political Economy of Inter-Regional Fiscal Flows, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Giuseppe Mastromatteo, 2011. "The Debate on the Crisis: Recent Reappraisals of the Concept of Functional Finance," DISCE - Quaderni dell'Istituto di Economia e Finanza ief0105, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    3. Sandro Brusco & Luca Colombo & Umberto Galmarini, 2010. "Local Governments Tax Autonomy, Lobbying, and Welfare," DISCE - Quaderni dell'Istituto di Economia e Finanza ief0097, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    4. Boitani, Andrea & Punzo, Chiara, 2019. "Banks’ leverage behaviour in a two-agent new Keynesian model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 347-359.
    5. Gnocchi, Stefano & Lagerborg, Andresa & Pappa, Evi, 2015. "Do labor market institutions matter for business cycles?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 299-317.
    6. Giuseppe Mastromatteo, 2011. "H.P. Minsky And Policies To Countervail Crises," DISCE - Quaderni dell'Istituto di Economia e Finanza ief0102, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).

    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. Mirko ABBRITTI & Andrea BOITANI & Mirella DAMIANI, 2006. "Unemployment, inflation and monetary policy in a dynamic New Keynesian model with hiring costs," Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia, Finanza e Statistica 22/2006, Università di Perugia, Dipartimento Economia.
    2. Mirko Abbritti; Sebastian Weber, 2008. "Labor Market Rigidities and the Business Cycle: Price vs. Quantity Restricting Institutions," IHEID Working Papers 01-2008, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies, revised Jan 2008.
    3. Zanetti, Francesco, 2011. "Labor market institutions and aggregate fluctuations in a search and matching model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 644-658, June.
    4. Proaño, Christian R., 2012. "Gradual wage-price adjustments, labor market frictions and monetary policy rules," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 220-235.
    5. Thorvardur Tjörvi Ólafsson, 2006. "The New Keynesian Phillips Curve: In Search of Improvements and Adaptation to the Open Economy," Economics wp31_tjorvi, Department of Economics, Central bank of Iceland.
    6. Federico Di Pace & Matthias Hertweck, 2019. "Labor Market Frictions, Monetary Policy, and Durable Goods," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 274-304, April.
    7. Thomas, Carlos, 2008. "Search and matching frictions and optimal monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 936-956, July.
    8. Holt Richard, 2008. "Job Reallocation, Unemployment and Hours in a New Keynesian Model," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-47, August.
    9. Olivier Blanchard & Jordi Galí, 2007. "Real Wage Rigidities and the New Keynesian Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 35-65, February.
    10. Marianna Riggi, 2010. "Nominal And Real Wage Rigidities In New Keynesian Models: A Critical Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 539-572, July.
    11. Givens, Gregory E., 2011. "Unemployment insurance in a sticky-price model with worker moral hazard," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 1192-1214, August.
    12. Mirko Abbritti, 2007. "A "Simple" Currency Union Model with Labor Market Frictions, Real Wage Rigidities and Equilibrium Unemployment," IHEID Working Papers 09-2007, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    13. Galí, Jordi, 2010. "Monetary Policy and Unemployment," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 10, pages 487-546, Elsevier.
    14. Régis Barnichon, 2007. "Productivity, Aggregate Demand and Unemployment Fluctuations," CEP Discussion Papers dp0819, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    15. Christoffel, Kai & Costain, James & de Walque, Gregory & Kuester, Keith & Linzert, Tobias & Millard, Stephen & Pierrard, Olivier, 2009. "Inflation dynamics with labour market matching: assessing alternative specifications," Bank of England working papers 375, Bank of England.
    16. Ravenna, Federico & Walsh, Carl E., 2008. "Vacancies, unemployment, and the Phillips curve," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1494-1521, November.
    17. Marianna Riggi, 2007. "New Keynesian models with labor market rigidities: a critical survey," Working Papers in Public Economics 102, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    18. Antonella Trigari, 2006. "The Role of Search Frictions and Bargaining for Inflation Dynamics," Working Papers 304, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    19. Antonella Trigari, 2009. "Equilibrium Unemployment, Job Flows, and Inflation Dynamics," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(1), pages 1-33, February.
    20. Christoffel, Kai & Kuester, Keith & Linzert, Tobias, 2009. "The role of labor markets for euro area monetary policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 908-936, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    hiring costs; wage bargaining; output gap; new keynesian Phillips curve;
    All these keywords.

    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
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • 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:pia:review:v:3:y:2012:i:1:n:2. 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: Ubaldo Pizzoli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deperit.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.