Self-enforcing Employment Contracts and Business Cycle Fluc- tuations

It is often argued that risk-sharing employment relationships provide a better description of labour relations than the standard Walrasian framework. Such relationships have been introduced in macroeconomic models under an assumption of full commitment. In the absence of commitment, however, these relationships must be self-enforcing. This paper examines the impact of limited commitment on labour market fluctuations. It is shown that self-enforcing employment contracts can explain several stylized facts related to the comovements of real wages and hours worked. Moreover, implications for the estimation of intertemporal labour supply elasticities are highlighted. In particular, it is shown that empirical studies of labour supply that neglect the existence of self-enforcing contracts may severely underestimate workers’ willingness to substitute leisure intertemporally.