Suchergebnisse

This paper proposes a search-and-matching model of unemployment in which jobs are rationed: the labor market does not clear in the absence of matching frictions. This job shortage arises in an economic equilibrium from the combination of some wage rigidity and diminishing marginal returns to labor. In recessions, job rationing is acute, driving the rise in unemployment, whereas matching frictions contribute little to unemployment. Intuitively in recessions, jobs are lacking, the labor market is slack, and recruiting is easy and inexpensive, so matching frictions do not matter much. In a calibrated model, cyclical fluctuations in the composition of unemployment are large.

This paper develops a Walrasian equilibrium theory of establishment level dynamics and matching frictions and uses it to evaluate the effects of congestion externalities in the matching process and determine the government interventions that are needed to implement a Pareto optimal allocation. The optimal policy, which involves a tax on the creation of help-wanted ads and an unemployment subsidy, is highly contractionary. However, it leads to large welfare gains. The policy also plays an important role in dampening the response of the economy to aggregate productivity shocks.

The endorsement of expansionary fiscal packages has often been based on the idea that large multipliers can contrast rising unemployment. Is that really the case? We explore those issues in a New Keynesian model in which unemployment arises because of matching frictions. We compare fiscal packages with different targets (pure demand stimuli versus subsidy to cost of hiring) and of government funding (lump sum taxation versus distortionary taxation). We find that in presence of demand stimuli fiscal multipliers are zero and even turn negative when financed with distortionary taxation. On the other side, in a model with a non-Walrasian labor market, policies aimed at reducing labor wedges, such as cost of hiring, are particularly effective in boosting employment and output.

The endorsement of expansionary fiscal packages has often been based on the idea that large multipliers can contrast rising unemployment. Is that really the case? We explore those issues in a New Keynesian model in which unemployment arises because of matching frictions. We compare fiscal packages with different targets (pure demand stimuli versus subsidy to cost of hiring) and of government funding (lump sum taxation versus distortionary taxation). We find that in presence of demand stimuli fiscal multipliers are zero and even turn negative when financed with distortionary taxation. On the other side, in a model with a non-Walrasian labor market, policies aimed at reducing labor wedges, such as cost of hiring, are particularly effective in boosting employment and output.

We use a novel data set on firm vacancies and job seekers from a Mexican government job placement service to analyze whether changes in matching frictions can explain the large and persistent increase in Mexican unemployment after the 2008 global financial crisis. We find evidence of a statistically signicant reduction in the efficiency of the matching function during the crisis. The estimated effect explains about 70 basis points of the 233 basis points observed increase in the unemployment rate. Hence, these results suggest that changes in matching frictions cannot explain most of the increase in unemployment.