IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/15681.html

Aggregate Implications of Labor Market Distortions: The Recession of 2008-9 and Beyond

Author

Listed:
  • Casey B. Mulligan

Abstract

The aggregate neoclassical growth model - with a labor income tax or "labor market distortion" that began growing at the end of 2007 as its only impulse - produces time series for aggregate labor usage, consumption, investment, and real GDP that closely resemble actual U.S. time series. Of particular interest is the fact that the model - with no explicit financial market - has investment fall steeply during the recession not because of any distortions with the supply of capital, but merely because labor is falling and labor is complementary with capital in the production function. Through the lens of the model, the fact the real consumption fell significantly below trend during 2008 suggests that labor usage per capita could get somewhat lower than it was at the end of 2009, and is expected to remain below pre-recession levels even after the "recovery."

Suggested Citation

  • Casey B. Mulligan, 2010. "Aggregate Implications of Labor Market Distortions: The Recession of 2008-9 and Beyond," NBER Working Papers 15681, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15681
    Note: EFG PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15681.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McCleary, Rachel & Barro, Robert, 2003. "Religion and Economic Growth across Countries," Scholarly Articles 3708464, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    2. Casey Mulligan, 2004. "What Do Aggregate Consumption Euler Equations Say About the Capital-Income Tax Burden?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 166-170, May.
    3. Robert J. Barro & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2003. "Economic Growth, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262025531, December.
    4. Robert J. Barro, 2003. "Determinants of Economic Growth in a Panel of Countries," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 4(2), pages 231-274, November.
    5. Casey Mulligan, 2009. "What Caused the Recession of 2008? Hints from Labor Productivity," NBER Working Papers 14729, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 28(Jul), pages 2-13.
    7. Marcus Scheiblecker & et al., 2003. "Österreichs Wirtschaft im Jahr 2002: Neuerlich ungenügendes Wachstum," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 76(4), pages 257-323, April.
    8. Robert J. Barro & Rachel McCleary, 2003. "Religion and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 9682, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Xavier Sala-i-Martín & Elsa V. Artadi, 2003. "Economic growth and investment in the Arab world," Economics Working Papers 683, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    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. Kyle F. Herkenhoff & Lee E. Ohanian, 2011. "Labor Market Dysfunction During the Great Recession," NBER Working Papers 17313, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Kyle Herkenhoff & Lee Ohanian, 2019. "The Impact of Foreclosure Delay on U.S. Employment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 31, pages 63-83, January.
    3. 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.
    4. Casey B. Mulligan & Luke Threinen, 2010. "The Marginal Products of Residential and Non-Residential Capital Through 2009," NBER Working Papers 15897, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Benjamin Jung, 2009. "Adjustment Dynamics of Bilateral Trade Flows: Theory and Evidence," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 145(IV), pages 421-442, December.
    2. Tarsalewska, Monika, 2015. "The timing of mergers along the production chain, capital structure, and risk dynamics," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 51-64.
    3. Antonio Ruíz Porras & Guillermo Rosales Jaramillo, 2014. "Crecimiento económico, banca y desarrollo financiero: evidencia internacional," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 29(2), pages 263-300.
    4. George M. Agiomirgianakis & George Sfakianakis & Fotini Voulgaris, 2016. "Determinants of economic growth revisited: is competitiveness and investment the solution for Greece?," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 359-367, July.
    5. Le, Thanh, 2011. "Do government policies affect growth? Examining a model with R&D and factor accumulation," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 62-70, March.
    6. Ali, Amjad & Ur Rehman, Hafeez, 2015. "Macroeconomic Instability and Its Impact on Gross Domestic Product: An Empirical Analysis of Pakistan," MPRA Paper 71037, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Collins, Ross D. & Selin, Noelle E. & de Weck, Olivier L. & Clark, William C., 2017. "Using inclusive wealth for policy evaluation: Application to electricity infrastructure planning in oil-exporting countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 23-34.
    8. repec:ejw:journl:v:6:y:2009:i:3:p:352-358 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Kul Luintel & Mosahid Khan & Konstantinos Theodoridis, 2014. "On the robustness of R&D," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 137-155, October.
    10. Keiichiro KOBAYASHI, 2014. "Public Debt Overhang in the Heterogeneous Agent Model," Discussion papers 14044, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    11. Dorota Ciołek, 2017. "Oszacowanie wartości produktu krajowego brutto w polskich powiatach," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 55-87.
    12. Cerqueti, Roy & Coppier, Raffaella, 2011. "Economic growth, corruption and tax evasion," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1-2), pages 489-500, January.
    13. repec:nbp:nbpbik:v:47:y:2016:i:6:p:463-494 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Duranton, Gilles, 2006. "Some foundations for Zipf's law: Product proliferation and local spillovers," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 542-563, July.
    15. Eduardo Cavallo & Sebastian Galiani & Ilan Noy & Juan Pantano, 2013. "Catastrophic Natural Disasters and Economic Growth," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1549-1561, December.
    16. Agnieszka Gehringer, 2015. "New evidence on the determinants of current accounts in the EU," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 42(4), pages 769-793, November.
    17. Laura Cabeza-García & Esther B. Del Brio & Mery Luz Oscanoa-Victorio, 2018. "Gender Factors and Inclusive Economic Growth: The Silent Revolution," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, January.
    18. Wang, Min, 2010. "Essays on Environment, Natural Resource, Growth and Development," ISU General Staff Papers 201001010800002824, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    19. Rajeev K. Goel & James W. Saunoris & Friedrich Schneider, 2019. "Growth In The Shadows: Effect Of The Shadow Economy On U.S. Economic Growth Over More Than A Century," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(1), pages 50-67, January.
    20. Ju, Jiandong & Lin, Justin Yifu & Wang, Yong, 2015. "Endowment structures, industrial dynamics, and economic growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 244-263.
    21. Paola Bongini & Małgorzata Iwanicz-Drozdowska & Paweł Smaga & Bartosz Witkowski, 2017. "Financial Development and Economic Growth: The Role of Foreign-Owned Banks in CESEE Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-25, March.
    22. Hosoya, Kei, 2016. "Recovery from natural disaster: A numerical investigation based on the convergence approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 410-420.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models

    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:nbr:nberwo:15681. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.