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Asset Prices and Unemployment Fluctuations

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick J. Kehoe
  • Pierlauro Lopez
  • Virgiliu Midrigan
  • Elena Pastorino
Abstract
Recent critiques have demonstrated that existing attempts to account for the unemployment volatility puzzle of search models are inconsistent with the procylicality of the opportunity cost of employment, the cyclicality of wages, and the volatility of risk-free rates. We propose a model that is immune to these critiques and solves this puzzle by allowing for preferences that generate time-varying risk over the cycle, and so account for observed asset pricing fluctuations, and for human capital accumulation on the job, consistent with existing estimates of returns to labor market experience. Our model reproduces the observed fluctuations in unemployment because hiring a worker is a risky investment with long-duration surplus flows. Intuitively, since the price of risk in our model sharply increases in recessions as observed in the data, the benefit from creating new matches greatly drops, leading to a large decline in job vacancies and an increase in unemployment of the same magnitude as in the data.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick J. Kehoe & Pierlauro Lopez & Virgiliu Midrigan & Elena Pastorino, 2020. "Asset Prices and Unemployment Fluctuations," Working Papers 20-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedcwq:87582
    DOI: 10.26509/frbc-wp-202010
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    Cited by:

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    2. Susanto Basu & Giacomo Candian & Ryan Chahrour & Rosen Valchev, 2021. "Risky Business Cycles," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 1029, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 17 Sep 2024.
    3. Saki Bigio & Eduardo Zilberman, 2020. "Speculation-Driven Business Cycles," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 865, Central Bank of Chile.
    4. Robert E. Hall & Marianna Kudlyak, 2022. "Why Has the US Economy Recovered So Consistently from Every Recession in the Past 70 Years?," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 1-55.
    5. Krivenko, Pavel, 2023. "Asset prices in a labor search model with confidence shocks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    6. John B. Donaldson & Rajnish Mehra, 2021. "Average crossing time: An alternative characterization of mean aversion and reversion," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(3), pages 903-944, July.
    7. Pierlauro Lopez & David Lopez-Salido & Francisco Vazquez-Grande, 2018. "Risk-Adjusted Linearizations of Dynamic Equilibrium Models," Working papers 702, Banque de France.
    8. Indrajit Mitra & Taeuk Seo & Yu Xu, 2024. "High Discounts and Low Fundamental Surplus: An Equivalence Result for Unemployment Fluctuations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(6), pages 4051-4068, June.
    9. Lars Ljungqvist & Thomas Sargent, 2021. "The fundamental surplus strikes again," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 41, pages 38-51, July.
    10. Sebastian Di Tella & Robert E. Hall, 2020. "Risk Premium Shocks Can Create Inefficient Recessions," NBER Working Papers 26721, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Yusuf Mercan & Benjamin Schoefer & Petr Sedláček, 2024. "A Congestion Theory of Unemployment Fluctuations," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 238-285, January.
    12. Mehran Ebrahimian & Jessica Wachter, 2020. "Risks to Human Capital," NBER Working Papers 26823, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Dou, Winston Wei & Ji, Yan & Wu, Wei, 2021. "Competition, profitability, and discount rates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 582-620.
    14. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2023. "Misery on Main Street, victory on Wall Street: Economic discomfort and the cross-section of global stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • 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
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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