Policy volatility and growth

The paper aims to examine how fiscal and monetary volatility might affect the balanced economic growth rate using a standard monetary growth model characterized by nominal wage rigidity and productive public spending. The model shows that any type of shock — monetary or fiscal — can generate either a negative or positive relationship between short-run volatility and long-run growth, critically depending on the size of government and the elasticity of output with respect to labor/capital. In particular, given the labor income share, it shows that excessive government spending may cause the impact of fiscal volatility on long-run growth to turn from positive to negative. In addition, a rise in the volatility of the monetary shock is capable of generating either an increase or decrease in the mean of growth. With the range of the labor share values in reality, the model produces results consistent with the fact that the relationship between volatility and growth is generally found empirically to be more negative in developing than in developed countries. The model can be seen as a further explanation for the ambiguous empirical evidence in the existing literature.     

Has Labor Income Become More Volatile? Evidence from International Industry‐Level Data

Changes in labor market institutions and the increasing integration of the world economy may affect the volatility of capital and labor incomes. This article documents and analyzes changes in income volatility using data for 11 industrialized countries, 22 industries and 35 years (1970–2004). The article has four main findings. First, the unconditional volatility of labor income has declined in parallel to the decline in macroeconomic volatility. Second, the industry‐specific, idiosyncratic component of labor income volatility has hardly changed. Third, cross‐sectional heterogeneity is substantial. If anything, the labor incomes of high‐ and low‐skilled workers have become more volatile relative to the volatility of capital incomes. Fourth, the volatility of labor income relative to the volatility of capital income declines in the labor share. Trade openness has no clear‐cut impact.     

贸易增长、劳动力市场刚性与产业间劳动力转移——基于面板数据门槛效应模型的实证研究

劳动力市场刚性的存在是决定国际贸易能否促进产业间劳动力转移的关键因素之一,然而现有的实证研究却忽视了劳动力市场刚性的决定性作用。本文基于国外文献的度量方法构建劳动力市场刚性和产业间劳动力转移的度量指标,并利用面板数据门槛效应模型研究当劳动力市场刚性存在差异时贸易增长对产业间劳动力转移所产生的不同影响。本文的研究发现,当劳动力市场刚性程度低于门槛值时,贸易增长能加速产业间劳动力转移;而当劳动力市场刚性程度高于门槛值时,贸易增长则会阻碍产业间劳动力转移。由此得出结论,欲使中国的贸易增长起到促进产业间劳动力转移的效果,必须先在劳动力市场领域进行改革,消除劳动力市场刚性。     

Wage rigidity and destabilizing spirals

This paper investigates the impact of real wage rigidity on the (de)stabilizing role of demand feedback. I show that destabilizing supply–demand feedback driven by countercyclical precautionary savings demand against uninsured unemployment risk is fundamentally a matter of rigid real wage adjustments over business cycles. Given the estimated wage rigidity consistent with aggregate labor market dynamics in the United States, the quantitative results suggest that the unemployment risk channel has a minor impact on aggregate volatility.     

Exchange Rate Movements and Unemployment in the EU Accession Countries—A Panel Analysis

According to the traditional “optimum currency area” approach, not much will be lost from a very hard peg to a currency union if there has been little reason for variations in the exchange rate. This paper takes a different approach, and highlights the fact that high exchange rate volatility may as well signal high costs for labor markets. The impact of exchange rate volatility on labor markets in the CEECs is put to the test, finding that volatility vis‐à‐vis the euro significantly increases unemployment. Hence, the elimination of exchange rate volatility could be considered as a substitute for a removal of employment protection legislation. However, labor market reform could be argued to be an equally worthy strategy, backed up by central bank independence and the adoption of an anti‐inflation monetary policy rule.     

Labor Market Dynamics and the Business Cycle: Structural Evidence for the United States*

We use a 12‐dimensional VAR to examine the aggregate effects of two structural technology shocks and two policy shocks. For each shock, we examine the dynamic effects on the labor market, the importance of the shock for labor market volatility, and the comovement between labor market variables and other key aggregate variables in response to the shock. We document that labor market indicators display “hump‐shaped” responses to the identified shocks. Technology shocks and monetary policy shocks are important for labor market volatility but the ranking of their importance is sensitive to the VAR specification. The conditional correlations at business cycle frequencies are similar in response to the four shocks, apart from the correlations between hours worked, labor productivity and real wages. To account for the unconditional correlations between these variables, a mixture of shocks is required.     

WHY HAVE AGGREGATE SKILLED HOURS BECOME SO CYCLICAL SINCE THE MID‐1980s?*

We document and discuss a dramatic change in the cyclical behavior of aggregate skilled hours since the mid‐1980s. Using CPS data for 1979:1–2003:4, we find that the volatility of skilled hours relative to the volatility of GDP has nearly tripled since 1984. In contrast, the cyclical properties of unskilled hours have remained essentially unchanged. We evaluate whether a simple supply/demand model for skilled and unskilled labor with capital‐skill complementarity in production can help explain this stylized fact. Our model accounts for about 60% of the observed increase in the relative volatility of skilled labor.     

Wealth inequality and employment fluctuations

This paper is concerned with the business cycle dynamics in search and matching models of the labor market when agents are ex-post heterogeneous. We focus on heterogeneity caused by different labor market histories and the resulting wealth inequality they generate. We show that this inequality implies wage rigidity relative to a complete insurance economy. The fraction of wealth poor agents prevents real wages from falling too much in recessions, since small decreases in income imply large losses in utility. Analogously, wages rise less during expansions than in models with homogeneous workers as small increases are enough for poor workers to accept job offers. This mechanism reduces the volatility of wages but generates more volatile employment levels.     

Flexibility at the Margin and Labor Market Volatility in OECD Countries*

We study the business‐cycle behavior of segmented labor markets with flexibility at the margin (e.g., just affecting fixed‐term contracts). We present a matching model with temporary and permanent jobs (i) where there is a gap in the firing costs associated with these types of jobs and (ii) where there are restrictions in the creation and duration of fixed‐term contracts. We show that a labor market with ``flexibility at the margin'' increases the unemployment volatility with respect to one that is fully regulated. This analysis yields new insights into the interpretation of the recent volatility changes witnessed in the OECD area.     

The equity premium in a small open economy and an application to Israel

We show that the preferences suggested by Greenwood, Hercowitz and Huffman (GHH), which are quite common in real business cycle (RBC) models of small open economies, are not suited for reproducing both the business cycle and the equity premium facts of a small open economy. We show that by assuming a moderate degree of a wealth effect on labor supply, together with some limitations on labor supply (in the form of real wage rigidity), we can increase the volatility of the stochastic discount factor (SDF), thereby increasing the equity premium and improving the fit of the business cycle moments. We also find that under the aforementioned assumptions, a shock to the realized return on foreign bonds can help in reproducing the equity premium.     

Why have business cycle fluctuations become less volatile?

This paper shows that a standard Real Business Cycle model driven by productivity shocks can successfully account for the 50% decline in cyclical volatility of output, its components, and labor input that has occurred since 1983. The model is successful because the volatility of productivity shocks has also declined significantly over the same time period. We then investigate whether the decline in the volatility of the Solow Residual is due to changes in the volatility of some other shock operating through a channel that is absent in the standard model. We therefore develop a model with variable capacity and labor utilization. We investigate whether government spending shocks, shocks that affect the household’s first order condition for labor, and shocks that affect the household’s first order condition for saving can plausibly account for the change in TFP volatility and in the volatility of output, its components, and labor. We find that none of these shocks are able to do this. This suggests that successfully accounting for the post-1983 decline in business cycle volatility requires a change in the volatility of a productivity-like shock operating within a standard growth model. We thank Stephen Parente, Ed Prescott, John Taylor, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions.     

Terms‐of‐Trade Shocks and Exchange Rate Regimes in a Small Open Economy*

We examine the impact of terms‐of‐trade shocks on key macroeconomic variables by numerically solving a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of a small open economy. The model considers nominal price rigidity under different exchange rate regimes. The numerical solutions obtained are consistent with the empirical regularities documented by Broda (2004), in which output responses to shocks are smoother in floats than in pegs; in moving from pegs to floats, the rise in nominal exchange rate volatility is coupled by the rise in real exchange rate volatility; and in both exchange rate regimes, net foreign assets is the most volatile variable.     

Labor market rigidity and productivity growth in a model of innovation-driven growth

Empirical studies investigating the relationship between productivity performance and labor market rigidity have generated a negative result. In this paper we try to provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical result. In doing so, we construct a no-shirking model of innovation-based growth and investigate the steady-state impact of a set of active labor market policies aimed at reducing labor market rigidity and knowledge mismatch generated by innovations. We find that, while enhancing job finding activity definitively improves the equilibrium growth-unemployment mix of the economy, reducing the knowledge mismatch of innovation through active measures is less effective in reducing the equilibrium unemployment and improving growth.     

“WHY NOT SETTLE DOWN ALREADY?” A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE DELAY IN MARRIAGE

A striking change in American society in the last 40 years has been the decline and delay in marriage. The fraction of young adults who have never been married increased significantly between 1970 and 2000. Idiosyncratic labor income volatility also rose. We establish a quantitatively important link between these facts. If marriage involves consumption commitments, then a rise in income volatility delays marriage. We quantitatively assess this hypothesis vis‐à‐vis others in the literature. Increased volatility accounts for about 20% of the observed delay in marriage and is strong relative to other mechanisms.     

Sensitivity of Job Destruction to Vintage and Tenure Effects

Matching models with endogenous job destruction typically deliver excessively volatile job destruction and moderate volatility of vacancies. In our model, vintage and tenure effects promote the creation of new matches that are temporarily more productive, while reducing the survival of temporarily less productive matches. This cleansing effect produces a counter‐cyclical inflow into unemployment, removes the strong response of job destruction to productivity shocks, and generates a downward‐sloping Beveridge curve, as in the data. The model also generates more volatility in vacancies, the job‐finding rate, and labor‐market tightness.     

Welfare under friction and uncertainty: General equilibrium evaluation of temporary employment in the U.S.

Temporary contracts usually fall outside of employee protection litigation, thus they are often cheaper than permanent contracts and are offered on-demand by firms. In the last two decades, there has been a sharp growth in such contracts in the U.S. labor market. This paper investigates the welfare consequences of offering temporary contracts in the U.S., an environment with low employee protection litigation and high production risk for firms. Employee protection litigation creates firing rigidity in regular labor markets. Pairing firing rigidity with high production risk, firms reduce employment and output, which generates welfare loss. The inexpensive and flexible nature of temporary contracts offers firms a buffer strategy in making employment decisions under risk and navigating the firing rigidity of the regular labor sector, thereby reducing welfare loss. However, temporary contracts cannot fully compensate for the efficiency cost from rising firing rigidity and risk.     

宏观经济景气波动对就业增长的影响

中国不成熟的市场经济和特殊的人口环境使得用就业弹性和奥肯定律均无法有效反映我国经济增长与就业关系,更无法刻画经济波动对就业的冲击。本文从宏观经济景气波动影响就业增长的三个路径：劳动力供给、劳动力需求和政府公共就业政策来建立系统的分析模型,以探析经济波动与就业增长的长期均衡关系和滞后冲击效应。在劳动力供给系统中,经济波动使经济活动人口增多,加快了就业增长;在劳动力需求系统中,经济波动不利于经济增长,从而不利于劳动力需求增长;在政府就业促进政策系统中,社会保障和就业的投入缓和了经济波动对就业增长的冲击。     

Heterogeneity, Job Creation and Unemployment Volatility

In this paper, I explore the impact of match‐specific heterogeneity at the job creation margin on business cycle fluctuations. I show that this form of heterogeneity alone does not help to amplify labor market volatility, either under full or under asymmetric information. First, I show analytically that, under full information, heterogeneity has no first‐order effect on the response of unemployment and job creation to productivity, and actually tends to dampen the response of market tightness. Then, in a series of calibrations, I show that with both full and asymmetric information, the model delivers labor market volatilities close to the representative‐agent, full‐information benchmark.     

Exchange Rate Movements and Employment Growth: An OCA Assessment of the CEE Economies

According to the traditional optimum currency area approach, not much will be lost from a very hard peg to a currency union if there has been little reason for variations in the exchange rate in the past. This paper takes a different approach and highlights the fact that high exchange rate volatility may also signal high costs for labor markets. The impact of exchange rate volatility on labor markets in the CEECs is analyzed, revealing that volatility vis-à-vis the euro significantly lowers employment growth. Hence, eliminating exchange rate volatility could be considered a substitute for removing employment protection legislation.     

The power of remittances on the international prevalence of child labor

This paper examines the relationship between remittance inflows and the prevalence of child labor. It investigates whether remittance inflows offset the effects of financial constraints and income shocks on the prevalence of child labor in receiving economies. Based on a sample of 82 developing countries and after factoring in the endogeneity of remittances, migration, and financial development, econometric results highlight that remittance inflows significantly reduce the prevalence of child labor in developing countries characterized by weak financial systems and high income growth volatility.