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This paper shows that in a perfectly stationary physical environment of the labor market, moral hazard and competition in long-term contracts can generate cycles in the tightness of the market, which in turn may induce job creation and destruction, and two periods or much longer cycles in employment and output. We claim that the model may shed light on the unemployment volatility puzzle, which has inspired many discussions in the literature.
Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as “hysteresis,” argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and theoretical literature that motivate this paradigm shift. The renewed interest in hysteresis has been sparked by the persistence of the Global Financial Crisis and fears of a slow recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The findings of the recent literature have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. In recessions, monetary and fiscal policies need to be more active to avoid the permanent scars of a downturn. And in good times, running a high-pressure economy could have permanent positive effects.
Interest in business cycles has had its 'ups and downs'. After a period of almost steady state growth and of economic tranquility, when the business cycle seemed to be obsolete, the turbulence of the 70s and 80s has contributedto a renewed interest in the topic. Important analytical and methodological innovations have also favored the present abundance of contributions. Four innovations are of particular importance: i. microfoundations ii. nonlinearities iii. stochastic variables iv. real aspects. Both Classical macroeconomics and new-Keynesian approaches seem to share these characteristics, which apply both to endogenous and exogenous explanations of the cycle. The distance separating the newer literature from its forebears seems vast. Previously, cycle theory was characterized by a macro approach and utilized nonlinearities either through piecewise 'linear models or with the aid of Classical theorems in the field of dynamic systems. To consider and to compare the old and the new literature on business cycles is one of the goals of this book. To narrow the distance separating them is another goal of this research. We do not try to bridge it, but rather to revisit the former tradition with new tools. Finally, a particular emphasis is put on the 'ceilings and floors' type of literature. One of us has written a D. Phil. thesis with Sir John Hicks, and both have worked with H. P. Minsky. Hicks, along with Goodwin, introdu. ced the concept of ceilings and floors into business cycle analysis, and Minsky made important contributions to the area.
We build a small open economy, real business cycle model with labor market frictions to evaluate the role of employment protection in shaping business cycles in emerging economies. The model features matching frictions and an endogenous selection effect by which inefficient jobs are destroyed in recessions. In a quantitative version of the model calibrated to the Mexican economy we find that reducing separation costs to a level consistent with developed economies would reduce output volatility by 15 percent. We also use the model to analyze the Mexican crisis episode of 2008 and conclude that an economy with lower separation costs would have experienced a smaller drop in output and in measured total factor productivity with no significant change in aggregate employment.
Emerging economies are characterized by higher consumption and real wage variability relative to output and a strongly countercyclical current account. A real business cycle model of a small open economy that embeds a Mortensen-Pissarides type of search-matching frictions and countercyclical interest rate shocks can jointly account for these regularities. In the face of countercyclical interest rate shocks, search-matching frictions increase future employment uncertainty, improving workers’ incentive to save and generating a greater response of consumption and the current account. Higher consumption response in turn feeds into larger fluctuations in the workers’ bargaining power while the interest rates shocks lead to variations in the firms’ willingness to hire; both of which contribute to a highly variable real wage.
The initial purposes of this book were to update and extend the discussion and the results presented ill our previous book, The Labor Market and Business Cycle Theories. Our 1990 article, which appeared in The Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, represented a first step in this direction. The consequences of this effort have materialized in a number of new chapters that has led de facto to a new book, in which the surviving parts have been largely revised. The 1989 book was too mathematically oriented for many Keynesians and post Keynesians to be fully appreciated and insufficiently microfounded for both new classicals and new-Keynesians to be warmly accepted, yet we received positive and encouraging comments, and it was sold out very quickly. It was an attempt to dis cuss dynamics in Keynesian terms, based on a double assumption that maintains its validity-that both economic facts and analytical and methodological innova tions had contributed to a renewed interest in business cycles, which over time has had its "ups and downs." Since then, many more articles and books have appeared, stressing in particular the role of microfoundations and of nonlinearities in shaping business cycle theory.
Labor Markets and Business Cycles integrates search and matching theory with the neoclassical growth model to better understand labor market outcomes. Robert Shimer shows analytically and quantitatively that rigid wages are important for explaining the volatile behavior of the unemployment rate in business cycles. The book focuses on the labor wedge that arises when the marginal rate of substitution between consumption and leisure does not equal the marginal product of labor. According to competitive models of the labor market, the labor wedge should be constant and equal to the labor income tax rate. But in U.S. data, the wedge is strongly countercyclical, making it seem as if recessions are periods when workers are dissuaded from working and firms are dissuaded from hiring because of an increase in the labor income tax rate. When job searches are time consuming and wages are flexible, search frictions--the cost of a job search--act like labor adjustment costs, further exacerbating inconsistencies between the competitive model and data. The book shows that wage rigidities can reconcile the search model with the data, providing a quantitatively more accurate depiction of labor markets, consumption, and investment dynamics. Developing detailed search and matching models, Labor Markets and Business Cycles will be the main reference for those interested in the intersection of labor market dynamics and business cycle research.