IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies – A Comment

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Simon Burgess
  • Helene Turon

    ()

Abstract

The Mortensen-Pissarides model is an attractive model because it is tractable, delivers some intuitive comparative statics and permits policy analysis. However, Shimer (2005) shows that the model generates far too little volatility in its key variables - unemployment and vacancies - relative to the variation in the shock variables. Shimer identifes the flexibility of wages as the key issue. In this Comment, we show that it is possible to generate suffcient volatility in unemployment and vacancies whilst retaining the standard wage determination process. We set out a model with two important changes from the Mortensen-Pissarides approach: job search by the employed is allowed, and the vacancy creation condition is changed to allow churning of workers. Calibrating the model to UK data, we show that our model can produce volatility in the unemployment and vacancy series to match the data; we confirm for the UK that the Mortensen-Pissarides model cannot, as shown by Shimer for the US.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/economics/working_papers/pdffiles/dp05573.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Department of Economics, University of Bristol, UK in its series Bristol Economics Discussion Papers with number 05/573.

as
in new window

Length: 22 pages
Date of creation: Jan 2005
Handle: RePEc:bri:uobdis:05/573
Contact details of provider: Postal:
Priory Road Complex, Priory Road, Bristol, BS8 1TU

Phone: 0117 928 8415
Fax: 0117 928 8577
Web page: http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Keywords: Unemployment; on-the-job search; worker flows; job flows; matching.;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

  • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2002. "Equilibrium Wage Dispersion with Worker and Employer Heterogeneity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2295-2350, November.
  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. Stephen Nickell & Patricia Jones & Glenda Quintini, 2002. "A Picture of Job Insecurity Facing British Men," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 1-27, January.
  4. 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.
  5. Christopher A. Pissarides, 1994. "Search Unemployment with On-the-job Search," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 61(3), pages 457-475.
  6. Den Haan, Wouter & Haefke, Christian & Ramey, Gary, 2001. "Shocks and Institutions in a Job Matching Model," CEPR Discussion Papers 2970, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  7. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1979. "Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 972-990, October.
  8. Burgess, Simon M, 1993. "A Model of Competition between Unemployed and Employed Job Searchers: An Application to the Unemployment Outflow Rate in Britain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(420), pages 1190-1204, September.
  9. Eriksson, Stefan & Gottfries, Nils, 2005. "Ranking of job applicants, on-the-job search, and persistent unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 407-428, June.
  10. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 25-49, March.
  11. Burgess, Simon & Turon, Hélène, 2010. "Worker flows, job flows and unemployment in a matching model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 393-408, April.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

as
in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bri:uobdis:05/573. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jonathan Temple)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.