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Business cycles in the equilibrium model of labor market search and self-insurance

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Listed author(s):
  • Makoto Nakajima

Abstract

The author introduces risk-averse preferences, labor-leisure choice, capital, individual productivity shocks, and market incompleteness to the standard Mortensen-Pissarides model of search and matching and explore the model's cyclical properties. There are four main findings. First and foremost, the baseline model can generate the observed large volatility of unemployment and vacancies with a realistic replacement ratio of the unemployment insurance benefits of 64 percent. Second, labor-leisure choice plays a crucial role in generating the large volatilities; additional utility from leisure when unemployed makes the value of unemployment close to the value of employment, which is crucial in generating a strong amplification, even with the moderate replacement ratio. Besides, it contributes to the amplification through an adjustment in the intensive margin of labor supply. Third, the borrowing constraint or uninsured individual productivity shocks do not significantly affect the cyclical properties of unemployment and vacancies: Most workers are well insured only with self-insurance. Fourth, the model better replicates the business cycle properties of the U.S. economy, thanks to the co-existence of adjustments in the intensive and extensive margins of labor supply and the stronger amplification.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in its series Working Papers with number 10-24.

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Date of creation: 2010
Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpwp:10-24
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Keywords: Employment (Economic theory) ; Business cycles;

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  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. Bils, Mark & Chang, Yongsung & Kim, Sun-Bin, 2012. "Comparative advantage and unemployment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 150-165.
  3. 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.
  4. repec:wop:calsdi:97-23 is not listed on IDEAS
  5. Gomes, Joao & Greenwood, Jeremy & Rebelo, Sergio, 2001. "Equilibrium unemployment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 109-152, August.
  6. Enchuan Shao & Pedro Silos, 2007. "Uninsurable individual risk and the cyclical behavior of unemployment and vacancies," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2007-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
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  9. Costain, James S. & Reiter, Michael, 2008. "Business cycles, unemployment insurance, and the calibration of matching models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1120-1155, April.
  10. Ch. Pissarides., 2011. "The Unemployment Volatility Puzzle: Is Wage Stickiness the Answer?," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 1.
  11. Andreas Hornstein & Per Krusell & Giovanni L. Violante, 2005. "Unemployment and vacancy fluctuations in the matching model: inspecting the mechanism," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Sum, pages 19-50.
  12. Jonathan Heathcote & Kjetil Storesletten & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "The Macroeconomic Implications of Rising Wage Inequality in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(4), pages 681-722, 08.
  13. Fujita, Shigeru & Ramey, Garey, 2007. "Job matching and propagation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(11), pages 3671-3698, November.
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  18. Michael Pries, 2008. "Worker Heterogeneity and Labor Market Volatility in Matching Models," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(3), pages 664-678, July.
  19. Simon Burgess & Helene Turon, 2005. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies – A Comment," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 05/573, Department of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
  20. Merz, Monika, 1995. "Search in the labor market and the real business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 269-300, November.
  21. David Domeij & Jonathan Heathcote, 2004. "On The Distributional Effects Of Reducing Capital Taxes," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(2), pages 523-554, 05.
  22. Gruber, Jonathan, 1997. "The Consumption Smoothing Benefits of Unemployment Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 192-205, March.
  23. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Huffman, Gregory W, 1988. "Investment, Capacity Utilization, and the Real Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(3), pages 402-417, June.
  24. Andolfatto, David, 1996. "Business Cycles and Labor-Market Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 112-132, March.
  25. Philip Jung, 2006. "Unemployment, Capital and Hours: On the quantitative performance of a DSGE," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 123, Society for Computational Economics.
  26. Hagedorn, Marcus & Manovskii, Iourii, 2008. "The cyclical behavior of equilibrium unemployment and vacancies revisited," Working Paper Series 853, European Central Bank.
  27. Huggett, Mark, 1993. "The risk-free rate in heterogeneous-agent incomplete-insurance economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(5-6), pages 953-969.
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Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Business cycles in the equilibrium model of labor market search and self-insurance
    by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2010-09-07 01:06:27
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