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Contractual Fragility, Job Destruction, and Business Cycles

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Author Info
Ramey, Garey
Watson, Joel

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Abstract

The authors develop a theory of labor contracting in which negative productivity shocks lead to costly job loss, despite unlimited possibilities for renegotiating wage contracts. Such fragile contracts emerge from firms' trade-offs between robustness of incentives in ongoing employment relationships and costly specific investment. Contractual fragility can serve as a powerful mechanism for propagating underlying productivity shocks: in a simulated matching market equilibrium, i.i.d. shocks are greatly magnified in their effect on market output, and the effect is highly persistent. The authors also explore novel motivations for government policies that strengthen employment relationships. Copyright 1997, the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by MIT Press in its journal Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Volume (Year): 112 (1997)
Issue (Month): 3 (August)
Pages: 873-911
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Handle: RePEc:tpr:qjecon:v:112:y:1997:i:3:p:873-911

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  1. MacLeod, W. Bentley & Malcomson, James M., 1993. "Wage premiums and profit maximization in efficiency wage models," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1223-1249, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Garey Ramey & Joel Watson, 1996. "Bilateral Trade and Opportunism in a Matching Market," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series 96-08, Department of Economics, UC San Diego. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 1995. "The High Unemployment Trap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(2), pages 527-50, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Klein, Benjamin & Crawford, Robert G & Alchian, Armen A, 1978. "Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 297-326, October.
  5. Lazear, Edward P, 1990. "Job Security Provisions and Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 105(3), pages 699-726, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Strand, Jon, 1992. "Business cycles with worker moral hazard," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1291-1303, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Shapiro, Carl & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1984. "Equilibrium Unemployment as a Worker Discipline Device," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 433-44, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1994. "Growth and Unemployment," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 61(3), pages 477-94, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Hopenhayn, Hugo & Rogerson, Richard, 1993. "Job Turnover and Policy Evaluation: A General Equilibrium Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(5), pages 915-38, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Ruhm, Christopher J, 1991. "Are Workers Permanently Scarred by Job Displacements?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 319-24, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Mortensen, Dale T & Pissarides, Christopher A, 1994. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 61(3), pages 397-415, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Hosios, Arthur J, 1994. "Unemployment and Vacancies with Sectoral Shifts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 124-44, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. MacLeod, W.B. & Malcomson, J.M., 1994. "Turnover Costs, Efficiency Wages and Cycles (forthcoming in Annales d'Economie et de Statistique)," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 9410, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
  14. Davis, Steven J & Haltiwanger, John C, 1992. "Gross Job Creation, Gross Job Destruction, and Employment Reallocation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(3), pages 819-63, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Ramey, Garey & Ramey, Valerie A, 1995. "Cross-Country Evidence on the Link between Volatility and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1138-51, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Andolfatto, David, 1996. "Business Cycles and Labor-Market Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 112-32, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. MacLeod, W Bentley & Malcomson, James M & Gomme, Paul, 1994. "Labor Turnover and the Natural Rate of Unemployment: Efficiency Wage versus Frictional Unemployment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(2), pages 276-315, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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