Tax Smoothing in Frictional Labor Markets
Tax Smoothing in Frictional Labor Markets

Author: David M. Arseneau

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13:

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"We re-examine the optimality of tax smoothing from the point of view of frictional labor markets. Our central result is that whether or not this cornerstone optimal fiscal policy prescription carries over to an environment with labor market frictions depends crucially on the cyclical nature of labor force participation. If the participation rate is exogenous at business-cycle frequencies -- as is typically assumed in the literature -- we show it is not optimal to smooth tax rates on labor income in the face of business-cycle shocks. However, if households do optimize at the participation margin, then tax-smoothing is optimal despite the presence of matching frictions. To understand these results, we develop a concept of general-equilibrium efficiency in search-based environments, which builds on existing (partial-equilibrium) search-efficiency conditions. Using this concept, we develop a notion of search-based labor-market wedges that allows us to trace the source of the sharply-contrasting fiscal policy prescriptions to the value of adjusting participation rates. Our results demonstrate that policy prescriptions can be very sensitive to the cyclical nature of labor-force participation in search-based environments"--P. 1.

Labor, Credit, and Goods Markets
Labor, Credit, and Goods Markets

Author: Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2017-11-10

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 0262036452

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An integrated framework to study the theoretical and quantitative properties of economies with frictions in labor, financial, and goods markets. This book offers an integrated framework to study the theoretical and quantitative properties of economies with frictions in multiple markets. Building on analyses of markets with frictions by 2010 Nobel laureates Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen, and Christopher A. Pissarides, which provided a new theoretical approach to search markets, the book applies this new paradigm to labor, finance, and goods markets. It shows, in particular, how frictions in different markets interact with each other. The book first covers the main developments in the analysis of the labor market in the presence of frictions, offering a systematic analysis of the dynamics of this environment and explaining the notion of macroeconomic volatility. Then, building on the generality and simplicity of the search analysis, the book adapts it to other markets, developing the tools and concepts to analyze friction in these markets. The book goes beyond the traditional general equilibrium analysis of markets, which is often frictionless. It begins with the standard analysis of a single market, and then sequentially integrates more markets into the analysis, progressing from labor to financial to goods markets. Along the way, the book provides a number of useful results and insights, including the existence of a direct link between search frictions and the degree of volatility in the economy.

Market Reforms at the Zero Lower Bound
Market Reforms at the Zero Lower Bound

Author: Matteo Cacciatore

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2017-10-03

Total Pages: 65

ISBN-13: 1484324269

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This paper studies the impact of product and labor market reforms when the economy faces major slack and a binding constraint on monetary policy easing. such as the zero lower bound. To this end, we build a two-country model with endogenous producer entry, labor market frictions, and nominal rigidities. We find that while the effect of market reforms depends on the cyclical conditions under which they are implemented, the zero lower bound itself does not appear to matter. In fact, when carried out in a recession, the impact of reforms is typically stronger when the zero lower bound is binding. The reason is that reforms are inflationary in our structural model (or they have no noticeable deflationary effects). Thus, contrary to the implications of reduced-form modeling of product and labor market reforms as exogenous reductions in price and wage markups, our analysis shows that there is no simple across-the-board relationship between market reforms and the behavior of real marginal costs. This significantly alters the consequences of the zero (or any effective) lower bound on policy rates.

Three Margins of Labor Supply and Policy Analysis 勞動供給三維與政策分析
Three Margins of Labor Supply and Policy Analysis 勞動供給三維與政策分析

Author: 賴志芳 Chih-Fang La

Publisher: 索引數位股份有限公司

Published: 2017-05-01

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9869427278

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This dissertation decomposes labor supply into three margins step by step and studies the relative effects of two adverse labor market institutes on labor supply. Labor supply in Europe declined about 30% relative to the US over the past 3 decades. The decline in labor supply comes from both hours worked per worker and employment. Some studies attributed the declining hours worked to higher labor taxes, while other studies accredited high unemployment rates in Europe to generous non-employment benefits. Fang and Rogerson (2009) is the only exception which incorporates two margins of labor supply. Fang and Rogerson (2009) embedded working hours into Pissarides matching model and found that higher labor taxes decrease both hours per worker and employment. The first essay of this dissertation starts from Fang and Rogerson (2009) to compares the relative effects of increases in labor taxes and non-employment benefits on hours per worker and employment and quantifies them.

Financial Disruptions and the Cyclical Upgrading of Labor
Financial Disruptions and the Cyclical Upgrading of Labor

Author: Brendan Epstein

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2017-06-15

Total Pages: 45

ISBN-13: 1484303954

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Amid total factor productivity (TFP) shocks job-to-job flows amplify the volatility of unemployment, but the aggregate implications of job-to-job flows amid financial shocks are less understood. To develop such understanding we model a general equilibrium labor-search framework that incorporates on-the-job (OTJ) search and distinctly accounts for the differential impact of TFP and financial shocks. Surprisingly, we find that the interaction of OTJ search with financial shocks is sufficiently different from its interaction with TFP shocks so that, under standard calibrations, our model generates aggregate dynamics exceedingly in line with the behavior of key U.S. macro data across several decades and in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis as well. Importantly, as in the data, the model yields relatively high volatilities of consumption, labor income, and unemployment. As such, our work contributes to resolving two limitations of current general equilibrium labor-search theory: under standard calibrations models without OTJ search generate implausibly low unemployment volatility, while models with OTJ search generate unemployment volatility closer to the data but at the expense of implausibly low consumption and labor-income volatility.

Economics—Advances in Research and Application: 2013 Edition
Economics—Advances in Research and Application: 2013 Edition

Author:

Publisher: ScholarlyEditions

Published: 2013-06-21

Total Pages: 886

ISBN-13: 1481675206

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Economics—Advances in Research and Application: 2013 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ book that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Tariffs. The editors have built Economics—Advances in Research and Application: 2013 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Tariffs in this book to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Economics—Advances in Research and Application: 2013 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

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.

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.