September 30, 2013, 17:00–18:30
Toulouse
Room MS 001
Political Economy Seminar
Abstract
In this paper, we quantify the contribution of labor market reforms to unemployment dynamics in nine OECD countries (Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States). We build and estimate a dynamic stochastic search-matching model with heterogeneous workers, where aggregate shocks to productivity fuel up the cycle, and unanticipated policy interventions shift structural parameters and displace the long-term equilibrium. We show that the heterogeneous-worker mechanism proposed by Robin (2011) to explain unemployment volatility by productivity shocks works well in all countries. We find that placement and employment services is the most important determinant of structural unemployment change.
JEL codes
- E24: Employment • Unemployment • Wages • Intergenerational Income Distribution • Aggregate Human Capital
- E32: Business Fluctuations • Cycles
- J21: Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
- KEYWORDS: UNEMPLOYMENT DYNAMICS:
- TURNOVER:
- LABOR MARKET INSTITUTIONS:
- JOB SEARCH:
- MATCHING FUNCTION: