[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scandj/v112y2010i4p782-811.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Employment Fluctuations with Downward Wage Rigidity: The Role of Moral Hazard

Author

Listed:
  • James Costain
  • Marcel Jansen
Abstract
We study the cyclical dynamics of job creation and destruction when workers' effort is not perfectly observable. The no‐shirking constraint may amplify fluctuations in hiring by making firms' surplus share procyclical, and may cause a burst of inefficient firing when a downturn begins. But quantitatively, it mainly raises the cost of motivating marginal workers in booms, since firms cannot commit to keep them in recessions, and thereby strongly damps the countercyclical fluctuations in the separation rate. This implies a robust Beveridge curve, but casts doubt on Ramey and Watson's (1997)“contractual fragility” mechanism and worsens Shimer's (2005a)“volatility puzzle”.

Suggested Citation

  • James Costain & Marcel Jansen, 2010. "Employment Fluctuations with Downward Wage Rigidity: The Role of Moral Hazard," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(4), pages 782-811, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scandj:v:112:y:2010:i:4:p:782-811
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9442.2010.01625.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9442.2010.01625.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9442.2010.01625.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Haefke, Christian & Sonntag, Marcus & van Rens, Thijs, 2013. "Wage rigidity and job creation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 887-899.
    2. Marcus Hagedorn & Iourii Manovskii, 2008. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies Revisited," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1692-1706, September.
    3. John Kennan, 2010. "Private Information, Wage Bargaining and Employment Fluctuations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 633-664.
    4. Mortensen, Dale & Pissarides, Christopher, 2011. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    5. Christopher A. Pissarides & Barbara Petrongolo, 2001. "Looking into the Black Box: A Survey of the Matching Function," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 390-431, June.
    6. Morten O. Ravn, 2008. "The Consumption-Tightness Puzzle," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2006, pages 9-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Rocheteau, Guillaume, 2001. "Equilibrium unemployment and wage formation with matching frictions and worker moral hazard," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 75-102, January.
    8. Kirk White & Arpad Abraham, 2004. "The Dynamics of Plant-level Productivity in U.S. Manufacturing," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 332, Society for Computational Economics.
    9. Krause, Michael U. & Lubik, Thomas A., 2007. "The (ir)relevance of real wage rigidity in the New Keynesian model with search frictions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 706-727, April.
    10. Steven J. Davis & John C. Haltiwanger & Scott Schuh, 1998. "Job Creation and Destruction," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262540932, April.
    11. Cole, Harold L & Rogerson, Richard, 1999. "Can the Mortensen-Pissarides Matching Model Match the Business-Cycle Facts?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(4), pages 933-959, November.
    12. Kimball, Miles S, 1994. "Labor-Market Dynamics When Unemployment is a Worker Discipline Device," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 1045-1059, September.
    13. Veronica Guerrieri & Robert Shimer & Randall Wright, 2010. "Adverse Selection in Competitive Search Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(6), pages 1823-1862, November.
    14. Costain, James S. & Reiter, Michael, 2008. "Business cycles, unemployment insurance, and the calibration of matching models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1120-1155, April.
    15. Carl E. Walsh, 2005. "Labor Market Search, Sticky Prices, and Interest Rate Policies," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(4), pages 829-849, October.
    16. Kiley, Michael T., 1997. "Efficiency wages, nominal rigidities and the cyclical behavior of real wages and marginal cost," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 215-221, October.
    17. Gary Solon & Ryan Michaels & Michael W. L. Elsby, 2009. "The Ins and Outs of Cyclical Unemployment," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 84-110, January.
    18. Shigeru Fujita & Garey Ramey, 2009. "The Cyclicality Of Separation And Job Finding Rates," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(2), pages 415-430, May.
    19. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 25-49, March.
    20. Mark Gertler & Antonella Trigari, 2009. "Unemployment Fluctuations with Staggered Nash Wage Bargaining," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(1), pages 38-86, February.
    21. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2567-2627 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Robert E. Hall, 2005. "Employment Efficiency and Sticky Wages: Evidence from Flows in the Labor Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(3), pages 397-407, August.
    23. Barro, Robert J., 1977. "Long-term contracting, sticky prices, and monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 305-316, July.
    24. Robert Shimer, 2012. "Reassessing the Ins and Outs of Unemployment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(2), pages 127-148, April.
    25. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The cyclicality of hires, separations, and job-to-job transitions," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 87(Jul), pages 493-508.
    26. Dale Mortensen & Eva Nagypal, 2007. "More on Unemployment and Vacancy Fluctuations," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(3), pages 327-347, July.
    27. Robert Shimer, 2004. "The Consequences of Rigid Wages in Search Models," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(2-3), pages 469-479, 04/05.
    28. Shigeru Fujita, 2004. "Vacancy persistence," Working Papers 04-23, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    29. Garey Ramey & Joel Watson, 1997. "Contractual Fragility, Job Destruction, and Business Cycles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 873-911.
    30. Mortensen, Dale T. & Pissarides, Christopher A., 1999. "New developments in models of search in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 39, pages 2567-2627, Elsevier.
    31. Wouter J. Den Haan & Garey Ramey & Joel Watson, 1999. "Contract-theoretic approaches to wages and displacement," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 55-68.
    32. MacLeod, W Bentley & Malcomson, James M, 1989. "Implicit Contracts, Incentive Compatibility, and Involuntary Unemployment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 447-480, March.
    33. Danthine, Jean-Pierre & Donaldson, John B., 1990. "Efficiency wages and the business cycle puzzle," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1275-1301, November.
    34. Rustichini, Aldo, 1998. "Dynamic Programming Solution of Incentive Constrained Problems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 329-354, February.
    35. Kangwoo Park, 2007. "Labor-Market Implications of Contracts under Moral Hazard," 2007 Meeting Papers 277, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    36. Antonella Trigari & Mark Gertler, 2005. "Unemployment Dynamics with Staggered Nash Wage Bargaining," 2005 Meeting Papers 921, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    37. Gomme, Paul, 1999. "Shirking, Unemployment and Aggregate Fluctuations," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(1), pages 3-21, February.
    38. Bjoern Bruegemann & Giuseppe Moscarini, 2007. "Rent Rigidity, Asymmetric Information, and Volatility Bounds in Labor Markets," NBER Working Papers 13030, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    39. Arthur J. Hosios, 1990. "On The Efficiency of Matching and Related Models of Search and Unemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(2), pages 279-298.
    40. Robert E. Hall, 2005. "Employment Fluctuations with Equilibrium Wage Stickiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 50-65, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:10:y:2008:i:1:p:1-10 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Martin, Christopher & Wang, Bingsong, 2020. "Search, shirking and labor market volatility," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    3. Katarzyna Budnik, 2012. "Do those who stay work less? On the impact of emigration on the measured TFP in Poland," NBP Working Papers 113, Narodowy Bank Polski.
    4. Julien Champagne, 2015. "The Carrot and the Stick: The Business Cycle Implications of Incentive Pay in the Labor Search Model," Staff Working Papers 15-35, Bank of Canada.
    5. Norikazu Tawara, 2008. "No-shirking Conditions in Frictional Labor Markets," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10.
    6. Kfir Eliaz & Ran Spiegler, 2014. "Reference Dependence and Labor Market Fluctuations," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 159-200.
    7. Fahr, Stephan & Abbritti, Mirko, 2011. "Macroeconomic implications of downward wage rigidities," Working Paper Series 1321, European Central Bank.
    8. Kangwoo Park, 2007. "Labor-Market Implications of Contracts under Moral Hazard," 2007 Meeting Papers 277, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Lunardelli, Andre, 2014. "Fairness and the disinflation puzzle," Economics Discussion Papers 2014-32, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Rogerson, Richard & Shimer, Robert, 2011. "Search in Macroeconomic Models of the Labor Market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 7, pages Pages: 61, Elsevier.
    11. Pei Kuang & Tong Wang, 2017. "Labor Market Dynamics With Search Frictions And Fair Wage Considerations," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(3), pages 1336-1349, July.
    12. Fumitaka Furuoka, 2021. "Does the Shimer puzzle really exist in the American labour market?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(3), pages 1009-1025.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rogerson, Richard & Shimer, Robert, 2011. "Search in Macroeconomic Models of the Labor Market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 7, pages Pages: 61, Elsevier.
    2. Mark Gertler & Antonella Trigari, 2009. "Unemployment Fluctuations with Staggered Nash Wage Bargaining," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(1), pages 38-86, February.
    3. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2009. "The Unemployment Volatility Puzzle: Is Wage Stickiness the Answer?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1339-1369, September.
    4. Beauchemin, Kenneth & Tasci, Murat, 2014. "Diagnosing Labor Market Search Models: A Multiple-Shock Approach," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(3), pages 548-572, April.
    5. Mark Gertler & Luca Sala & Antonella Trigari, 2008. "An Estimated Monetary DSGE Model with Unemployment and Staggered Nominal Wage Bargaining," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(8), pages 1713-1764, December.
    6. Gabriele Cardullo, 2010. "Matching Models Under Scrutiny: An Appraisal Of The Shimer Puzzle," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 622-656, September.
    7. Tortorice, Daniel L., 2013. "Endogenous separation, wage rigidity and the dynamics of unemployment," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 38(PB), pages 179-191.
    8. Christoffel, Kai & Kuester, Keith, 2008. "Resuscitating the wage channel in models with unemployment fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 865-887, July.
    9. Haefke, Christian & Sonntag, Marcus & van Rens, Thijs, 2013. "Wage rigidity and job creation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 887-899.
    10. Kilponen, Juha & Vanhala, Juuso, 2009. "Productivity and job flows: heterogeneity of new hires and continuing jobs in the business cycle," Working Paper Series 1080, European Central Bank.
    11. Tsasa, Jean-Paul K., 2022. "Labor market volatility in a fully specified RBC search model: An analytical investigation," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    12. Domenico Ferraro, 2018. "The Asymmetric Cyclical Behavior of the U.S. Labor Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 145-162, October.
    13. Martin Gervais & Nir Jaimovich & Henry E. Siu & Yaniv Yedid‐Levi, 2015. "Technological Learning And Labor Market Dynamics," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(1), pages 27-53, February.
    14. Euiyoung Jung, 2021. "Rigid Wages, Endogenous Job Destruction, and Destabilizing Spirals," Working Papers halshs-03213006, HAL.
    15. Shigeru Fujita, 2011. "Dynamics of worker flows and vacancies: evidence from the sign restriction approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 89-121, January/F.
    16. Costain, James S. & Reiter, Michael, 2008. "Business cycles, unemployment insurance, and the calibration of matching models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1120-1155, April.
    17. Yashiv, Eran, 2007. "Labor search and matching in macroeconomics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1859-1895, November.
    18. Miyamoto, Hiroaki, 2011. "Cyclical behavior of unemployment and job vacancies in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 214-225.
    19. Murat Tasci, 2006. "On-the-Job Search and Labor Market Reallocation," 2006 Meeting Papers 333, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Hertweck Matthias Sebastian, 2013. "Strategic wage bargaining, labor market volatility, and persistence," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 123-149, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:scandj:v:112:y:2010:i:4:p:782-811. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-9442 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.