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Bad Jobs and Low Inflation

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Abstract

We study a model in which firms compete to retain and attract workers searching on the job. A drop in the rate of on-the-job search makes such wage competition less likely, reducing expected labor costs and lowering inflation. This model explains why inflation has remained subdued over the last decade, which is a conundrum for general equilibrium models and Phillips curves. Key to this success is the observed slowdown in the recovery of the employment-to-employment transition rate in the last five years, which is interpreted by the model as a decline in the share of employed workers searching for a job. This fall in the on-the-job search rate is corroborated by the micro data.

Suggested Citation

  • Renato Faccini & Leonardo Melosi, 2020. "Bad Jobs and Low Inflation," Working Paper Series WP 2020-09, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:87688
    DOI: 10.21033/wp-2020-09
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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Bad Jobs and Low Inflation
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2019-10-19 20:21:04

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    Cited by:

    1. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi & Anna Rogantini Picco, 2022. "Who is Afraid of Eurobonds?," Working Paper Series WP 2022-43, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    2. Siena, Daniele & Zago, Riccardo, 2022. "Employment protection legislation matters for the Phillips Curve," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    3. Cynthia L. Doniger, 2021. "What Can We Learn from Asynchronous Wage Changes?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-055r1, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), revised 31 Mar 2022.
    4. Gregor Boehl & Philipp Lieberknecht, 2021. "The Hockey Stick Phillips Curve and the Zero Lower Bound," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2021_266, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    5. Richard Ashley & Randal Verbrugge, 2019. "The Intermittent Phillips Curve: Finding a Stable (But Persistence-Dependent) Phillips Curve Model Specification," Working Papers 19-09R2, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, revised 14 Feb 2023.
    6. R. Jason Faberman & Andreas I. Mueller & Ayşegül Şahin* & Giorgio Topa, 2020. "The Shadow Margins of Labor Market Slack," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(S2), pages 355-391, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    misallocation; cyclical; labor market slack; Inflation; job ladder; Phillips curve;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • 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

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