Labor Markets and Business Cycles
Labor Markets and Business Cycles

Author: Robert Shimer

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-04-12

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 1400835232

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Labor Markets and Business Cycles integrates search and matching theory with the neoclassical growth model to better understand labor market outcomes. Robert Shimer shows analytically and quantitatively that rigid wages are important for explaining the volatile behavior of the unemployment rate in business cycles. The book focuses on the labor wedge that arises when the marginal rate of substitution between consumption and leisure does not equal the marginal product of labor. According to competitive models of the labor market, the labor wedge should be constant and equal to the labor income tax rate. But in U.S. data, the wedge is strongly countercyclical, making it seem as if recessions are periods when workers are dissuaded from working and firms are dissuaded from hiring because of an increase in the labor income tax rate. When job searches are time consuming and wages are flexible, search frictions--the cost of a job search--act like labor adjustment costs, further exacerbating inconsistencies between the competitive model and data. The book shows that wage rigidities can reconcile the search model with the data, providing a quantitatively more accurate depiction of labor markets, consumption, and investment dynamics. Developing detailed search and matching models, Labor Markets and Business Cycles will be the main reference for those interested in the intersection of labor market dynamics and business cycle research.

Hysteresis and Business Cycles
Hysteresis and Business Cycles

Author: Ms.Valerie Cerra

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2020-05-29

Total Pages: 50

ISBN-13: 1513536990

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Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as “hysteresis,” argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and theoretical literature that motivate this paradigm shift. The renewed interest in hysteresis has been sparked by the persistence of the Global Financial Crisis and fears of a slow recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The findings of the recent literature have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. In recessions, monetary and fiscal policies need to be more active to avoid the permanent scars of a downturn. And in good times, running a high-pressure economy could have permanent positive effects.

Do Active Labor Market Policies Increase Employment?
Do Active Labor Market Policies Increase Employment?

Author: Mr.Marcello M. Estevão

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2003-12-01

Total Pages: 31

ISBN-13: 1451875649

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Using panel data for 15 industrial countries, active labor market policies (ALMPs) are shown to have raised employment rates in the business sector in the 1990s, after controlling for many institutions, country-specific effects, and economic variables. Among such policies, direct subsidies to job creation were the most effective. ALMPs also affected employment rates by reducing real wages below levels allowed by technological growth, changes in the unemployment rate, and institutional and other economic factors. However, part of this wage moderation may be linked to a composition effect because policies were targeted to low-paid individuals. Whether ALMPs are cost-effective from a budgetary perspective remains to be determined, but they are certainly not substitutes for comprehensive institutional reforms.

The Natural Survival of Work
The Natural Survival of Work

Author: Pierre Cahuc

Publisher: MIT Press (MA)

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13:

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How to manage the unemployment that occurs in the process of the continuous job destruction and creation responsible for growth in today's economies: what recent economic research tells us about wages, incentives to work, and education.

International Dimensions of Monetary Policy
International Dimensions of Monetary Policy

Author: Jordi Galí

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-03-15

Total Pages: 663

ISBN-13: 0226278875

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United States monetary policy has traditionally been modeled under the assumption that the domestic economy is immune to international factors and exogenous shocks. Such an assumption is increasingly unrealistic in the age of integrated capital markets, tightened links between national economies, and reduced trading costs. International Dimensions of Monetary Policy brings together fresh research to address the repercussions of the continuing evolution toward globalization for the conduct of monetary policy. In this comprehensive book, the authors examine the real and potential effects of increased openness and exposure to international economic dynamics from a variety of perspectives. Their findings reveal that central banks continue to influence decisively domestic economic outcomes—even inflation—suggesting that international factors may have a limited role in national performance. International Dimensions of Monetary Policy will lead the way in analyzing monetary policy measures in complex economies.

Explaining Unemployment in Spain
Explaining Unemployment in Spain

Author: Mr.Jeffrey R. Franks

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1994-09-01

Total Pages: 42

ISBN-13: 1451852576

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Spain has the most serious and persistent unemployment problem in Europe, with an unemployment rate that reached 24.6 percent in early 1994. This paper explores the characteristics of this unemployment problem, its causes, and provides a brief discussion of recent labor market reform measures and their likely Impact. A demographic shift in recent years has produced a large rise in female labor force participation and a decrease in agricultural jobs to which the economy has been unable to adjust. The effects of generous unemployment benefits and the large underground economy may explain 6–12 percentage points of the resulting unemployment, but the remainder must be explained by failures and rigidities in the labor market. The paper presents econometric evidence that unemployment displays hysteresis, and that wages are not responsive to changes in the unemployment rate. This evidence supports the claim that insider-outsider factors and rigidities in the legal structure of the labor market are responsible for much of the high unemployment rate. Recent reforms have improved the functioning of the labor market, but they are unlikely to be sufficient to reduce unemployment to single digit rates without further action.

Behavioral Economics and Its Applications
Behavioral Economics and Its Applications

Author: Peter Diamond

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012-01-12

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 1400829143

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In the last decade, behavioral economics, borrowing from psychology and sociology to explain decisions inconsistent with traditional economics, has revolutionized the way economists view the world. But despite this general success, behavioral thinking has fundamentally transformed only one field of applied economics-finance. Peter Diamond and Hannu Vartiainen's Behavioral Economics and Its Applications argues that behavioral economics can have a similar impact in other fields of economics. In this volume, some of the world's leading thinkers in behavioral economics and general economic theory make the case for a much greater use of behavioral ideas in six fields where these ideas have already proved useful but have not yet been fully incorporated--public economics, development, law and economics, health, wage determination, and organizational economics. The result is an attempt to set the agenda of an important development in economics--an agenda that will interest policymakers, sociologists, and psychologists as well as economists. Contributors include Ian Ayres, B. Douglas Bernheim, Truman F. Bewley, Colin F. Camerer, Anne Case, Michael D. Cohen, Peter Diamond, Christoph Engel, Richard G. Frank, Jacob Glazer, Seppo Honkapohja, Christine Jolls, Botond Koszegi, Ulrike Malmendier, Sendhil Mullainathan, Antonio Rangel, Emmanuel Saez, Eldar Shafir, Sir Nicholas Stern, Jean Tirole, Hannu Vartiainen, and Timothy D. Wilson.

The Economic Crisis in Social and Institutional Context
The Economic Crisis in Social and Institutional Context

Author: Sebastiano Fadda

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-02-20

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 131761741X

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This book explores the foundations of the current economic crisis. Offering a heterodox approach to interpretation it examines the policies implemented before and during the crisis, and the main institutions that shaped the model of advanced economies, particularly in the last two decades. The first part of the book provides a theoretical analysis of the crisis. The roots of the ‘great recession’ are divided into fundamentals with origins in financial liberalisation, financial innovation and income distribution, and complementary or contributory factors such as the international imbalances, the monetary policy,and the role of credit rating agencies. Part II suggests various paths to recovery while emphasising that it will be necessary to develop alternative strategies for sustainable economic recovery and growth. These strategies will require genuine political support and a new 'great European vision' to address major issues concerning the EU such as unemployment, structural regional differences and federalism. Drawing on various schools of thought, this book explains the complexities of the crisis through a wider evolutionary-institutional and heterodox framework.

Kingdom of Netherlands
Kingdom of Netherlands

Author: International Monetary Fund

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2011-06-21

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1455286648

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Important issues of the Netherlands are discussed. Openness to trade has benefited the Netherlands before the crisis and has supported the recent recovery process. However, both financial openness and trade linkages have also been a transmission channel for the financial crisis. Synchronized fiscal tightening across Europe has important spillover effects for GDP growth. The improvement on the supply side of credit has contributed to a normalization of the credit market. However, the recent increase in the financial stress index indicates that the situation is still fragile.