A search-theoretic model of equilibrium unemployment is constructed and shown to be consistent with the key regularities of the labor market and business cycle. The two distinguishing features of the model are: (i) the decision to accept or reject jobs is modeled explicitly, and (ii) markets are incomplete. The model is well suited to address a number of interesting policy questions. Two such a...

This paper tests the robustness of the “two-tiered labor market” in which efficient bilateral contracts emerge between firms and workers (Brown, Falk and Fehr, 2004). Our experiment introduces stochastic interruptions in firm’s ability to offer contracts. Involuntarily laid off workers are eager to be reemployed; they are unselective about job offers and do not shirk. Firm’s preference for thes...

This paper incorporates endogenous credit constraints in a search model of unemployment. These constraints generate multiple equilibria supported by self-fulfilling beliefs. A stock market bubble exists through a positive feedback loop mechanism. The collapse of the bubble tightens the credit constraints, causing firms to reduce investment and hirings. Unemployed workers are hard to find jobs g...

This paper quantifies the impact of the Hartz reforms on matching efficiency, using monthly SOEP gross worker flows (1983-2009). We show that, until the early 2000s, close to 60% of changes in the unemployment rate are due to changes in the inflow rate (job separation). On the contrary, since the implementation of the reforms in the mid-2000s, the importance of the outflow rate (job finding) ha...

The framework of a general equilibrium heterogeneous agent model is used to study the optimal design of an unemployment insurance (UI) scheme and preferences for unemployment policy reforms. In a first step, the optimal defined benefit and defined replacement ratio UI systems are obtained in simulations. Then, the question whether switching to such an optimal system from the status quo would be...

Labor and product market regulations affect the unemployment rate of a country without doubt. Econometricians, however, have yet to establish an unequivocal significance of this impact. Model mis-specification, one of the main underlying problems, is overcome by adopting a Bayesian Model Averaging approach. I apply this method to a panel data set that covers 17 OECD countries for the time perio...

Standard economic analysis holds that labor market rigidities are harmful for job creation and typically increase unemployment. But many orthodox reforms of the labor market have proved di±cult to implement because of political opposition. For these reasons it is important to explain why we observe such regulations. In this paper I outline a theory of how they may arise and why they ̄t together...

This paper studies the contribution of in‡ow and out‡ow rates to the unemployment dynamics in the long-run. I …nd that in the U.S., both in‡ow and out‡ow rates contribute signi…cantly to variation in the long-run trend of the unemployment rate. In‡ow and out‡ow rates account for roughly similar proportions of overall unemployment variability in the long-run. Keywords: Unemployment dynamics; Job...

This paper proposes a generalized WS/PS model studying the impact of public spending on employment, in the presence of imperfect competition in labour and product markets. Public spending is shown to a¤ect …rms pro…t margins and …rms labour demand schedules. The model highlights a new channel by which …scal policy can improve employment. By reducing …rms’mark-up, public spending helps counterin...

In this paper we study the cyclical behavior of job and worker flows. Wefindfor the Netherlands that employment and unemployment flows are large, relative to the stocks, that both the sum ofemployment in and outflow and the sum of job creation and destruction (je and jd) move countercyclical. Other issues that we examined include the importance ofaggregate vs. sectoral shocks, the persistence o...