IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedhwp/87688.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bad Jobs and Low Inflation

Author

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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.chicagofed.org/~/media/publications/working-papers/2020/wp2020-09-pdf.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.21033/wp-2020-09?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pierre Cahuc & Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2006. "Wage Bargaining with On-the-Job Search: Theory and Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(2), pages 323-364, March.
    2. 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.
    3. Justiniano, Alejandro & Primiceri, Giorgio E. & Tambalotti, Andrea, 2010. "Investment shocks and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 132-145, March.
    4. R. Jason Faberman & Andreas I. Mueller & Ayşegül Şahin & Giorgio Topa, 2022. "Job Search Behavior Among the Employed and Non‐Employed," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(4), pages 1743-1779, July.
    5. Renato Faccini & Eran Yashiv, 2022. "The importance of hiring frictions in business cycles," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), pages 1101-1143, July.
    6. Jordi Galí & Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2012. "Unemployment in an Estimated New Keynesian Model," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 329-360.
    7. Mark Gertler & Christopher Huckfeldt & Antonella Trigari, 2020. "Unemployment Fluctuations, Match Quality, and the Wage Cyclicality of New Hires," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(4), pages 1876-1914.
    8. Giuseppe Moscarini & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2016. "Did the Job Ladder Fail after the Great Recession?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 55-93.
    9. Dotsey, Michael & King, Robert G., 2005. "Implications of state-dependent pricing for dynamic macroeconomic models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 213-242, January.
    10. David Autor & David Dorn & Lawrence F Katz & Christina Patterson & John Van Reenen, 2020. "The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms [“Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(2), pages 645-709.
    11. 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.
    12. R. Jason Faberman & Marianna Kudlyak, 2019. "The Intensity of Job Search and Search Duration," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 327-357, July.
    13. Luca Sala & Ulf Söderström & Antonella Trigari, 2013. "Structural and Cyclical Forces in the Labor Market during the Great Recession: Cross-Country Evidence," NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(1), pages 345-404.
    14. 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.
    15. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g8grh35j2 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Michael W. L. Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Aysegul Sahin, 2010. "The Labor Market in the Great Recession," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 41(1 (Spring), pages 1-69.
    17. Sims, Christopher A & Zha, Tao, 1998. "Bayesian Methods for Dynamic Multivariate Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 949-968, November.
    18. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/dc0ckec3fcb29ms9850c12h1p is not listed on IDEAS
    19. R. Jason Faberman & Alejandro Justiniano, 2015. "Job Switching and Wage Growth," Chicago Fed Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    20. 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.
    21. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    22. Kimball, Miles S, 1995. "The Quantitative Analytics of the Basic Neomonetarist Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(4), pages 1241-1277, November.
    23. A. W. Phillips, 1958. "The Relation Between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 25(100), pages 283-299, November.
    24. Silva, José Ignacio & Toledo, Manuel, 2009. "Labor Turnover Costs And The Cyclical Behavior Of Vacancies And Unemployment," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(S1), pages 76-96, May.
    25. Levin, Andrew T. & López-Salido, José David & Yun, Tack, 2007. "Strategic Complementarities and Optimal Monetary Policy," Kiel Working Papers 1355, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    26. Jaimovich, Nir & Saporta-Eksten, Itay & Siu, Henry & Yedid-Levi, Yaniv, 2021. "The macroeconomics of automation: Data, theory, and policy analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 1-16.
    27. Ravenna, Federico & Walsh, Carl E., 2008. "Vacancies, unemployment, and the Phillips curve," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1494-1521, November.
    28. Giuseppe Moscarini & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2009. "The Timing of Labor Market Expansions: New Facts and a New Hypothesis," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2008, Volume 23, pages 1-51, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g8grh35j2 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Davis, Steven J. & Faberman, R. Jason & Haltiwanger, John, 2012. "Labor market flows in the cross section and over time," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 1-18.
    31. Robert E. Hall, 2011. "The Long Slump," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 431-469, April.
    32. Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2002. "Equilibrium Wage Dispersion with Worker and Employer Heterogeneity," Post-Print hal-03458567, HAL.
    33. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/dc0ckec3fcb29ms9850c12h1p is not listed on IDEAS
    34. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 25-49, March.
    35. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/dc0ckec3fcb29ms985085gkbp is not listed on IDEAS
    36. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/dc0ckec3fcb29ms985085gkbp is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Bad Jobs and Low Inflation
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2019-10-19 20:21:04

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Marco Del Negro & Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri & Andrea Tambalotti, 2020. "What's Up with the Phillips Curve?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 51(1 (Spring), pages 301-373.
    2. Drago Bergholt & Francesco Furlanetto & Etienne Vaccaro-Grange, 2023. "Did monetary policy kill the Phillips Curve? Some simple arithmetics," Working Paper 2023/2, Norges Bank.
    3. Felipe Alves, 2022. "Job Ladder and Business Cycles," Staff Working Papers 22-14, Bank of Canada.
    4. 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.
    5. Richard Ashley & Randal J. 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.
    7. Böhl, Gregor & Lieberknecht, Philipp, 2021. "The hockey stick Phillips curve and the zero lower bound," IMFS Working Paper Series 153, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    8. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi & Anna Rogantini Picco, 2022. "Who is Afraid of Eurobonds?," Working Paper Series WP 2022-43, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    9. Nicholas Apergis, 2024. "Eurozone inflation: fresh projections from global factors," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 13(1), pages 39-47.
    10. Siena, Daniele & Zago, Riccardo, 2022. "Employment protection legislation matters for the Phillips Curve," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    11. 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.

    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. Francesco Furlanetto & Nicolas Groshenny, 2016. "Mismatch Shocks and Unemployment During the Great Recession," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(7), pages 1197-1214, November.
    2. Francesco Furlanetto & Nicolas Groshenny, "undated". "Mismatch Shocks and Unemployment During the Great Recession," School of Economics Working Papers 2015-14, University of Adelaide, School of Economics.
    3. Liu, Zheng & Miao, Jianjun & Zha, Tao, 2016. "Land prices and unemployment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 86-105.
    4. Renato Faccini & Leonardo Melosi, 2022. "Pigouvian Cycles," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 281-318, April.
    5. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin S. Eichenbaum & Mathias Trabandt, 2016. "Unemployment and Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84(4), pages 1523-1569, July.
    6. Di Pace, Federico & Villa, Stefania, 2016. "Factor complementarity and labour market dynamics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 70-112.
    7. Luca Sala & Ulf Söderström & Antonella Trigari, 2013. "Structural and Cyclical Forces in the Labor Market during the Great Recession: Cross-Country Evidence," NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(1), pages 345-404.
    8. 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.
    9. Renato Faccini & Eran Yashiv, 2022. "The importance of hiring frictions in business cycles," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), pages 1101-1143, July.
    10. Harding, Martín & Lindé, Jesper & Trabandt, Mathias, 2022. "Resolving the missing deflation puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 15-34.
    11. Renato Faccini & Leonardo Melosi, 2018. "The Role of News about TFP in U.S. Recessions and Booms," Working Paper Series WP-2018-6, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    12. 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.
    13. Lindé, Jesper & Smets, Frank & Wouters, Rafael, 2016. "Challenges for Central Banks´ Macro Models," Working Paper Series 323, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    14. Simon Jäger & Benjamin Schoefer & Samuel Young & Josef Zweimüller, 2020. "Wages and the Value of Nonemployment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(4), pages 1905-1963.
    15. Moser, Christian & Saidi, Farzad & Wirth, Benjamin & Wolter, Stefanie, 2020. "Credit Supply, Firms, and Earnings Inequality," MPRA Paper 100371, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. R. Jason Faberman & Andreas I. Mueller & Ayşegül Şahin & Giorgio Topa, 2022. "Job Search Behavior Among the Employed and Non‐Employed," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(4), pages 1743-1779, July.
    17. Lindé, J. & Smets, F. & Wouters, R., 2016. "Challenges for Central Banks’ Macro Models," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2185-2262, Elsevier.
    18. 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.
    19. John Grigsby & Erik Hurst & Ahu Yildirmaz, 2021. "Aggregate Nominal Wage Adjustments: New Evidence from Administrative Payroll Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(2), pages 428-471, February.
    20. Harding, Martín & Lindé, Jesper & Trabandt, Mathias, 2023. "Understanding post-COVID inflation dynamics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(S), pages 101-118.

    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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedhwp:87688. 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: Lauren Wiese (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbchus.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.