IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/4461.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unemployment and hours of work: the North Atlantic divide revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Pissarides, Christopher

Abstract

I examine the dynamic evolutions of unemployment, hours of work and the service share since the war in the United States and Europe. The theoretical model brings together all three and emphasizes technological growth. Computations show that the very low unemployment in Europe in the 1960s was due to the high productivity growth associated with technological catch-up. Productivity also played a role in the dynamics of hours but a full explanation for the fast rise of service employment and the big fall in aggregate hours needs further research. Taxation has played a role but results are mixed.

Suggested Citation

  • Pissarides, Christopher, 2006. "Unemployment and hours of work: the North Atlantic divide revisited," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4461, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:4461
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/4461/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mortensen, Dale & Pissarides, Christopher, 2011. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    2. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald, 1995. "The Wage Curve," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026202375x, April.
    3. Valerie A. Ramey & Neville Francis, 2009. "A Century of Work and Leisure," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 189-224, July.
    4. repec:wop:calsdi:97-23 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Christopher A. Pissarides & Barbara Petrongolo, 2001. "Looking into the Black Box: A Survey of the Matching Function," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 390-431, June.
    6. Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 28(Jul), pages 2-13.
    7. Christopher A. Pissarides, 1994. "Search Unemployment with On-the-job Search," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 457-475.
    8. Gary Solon & Robert Barsky & Jonathan A. Parker, 1994. "Measuring the Cyclicality of Real Wages: How Important is Composition Bias?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 1-25.
    9. Pedro Portugal & Anabela Carneiro, 2004. "Workers' Flows and Real Wage Cyclicality," Working Papers w200409, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    10. Paul J. Devereux & Robert A. Hart, 2007. "The Spot Market Matters: Evidence On Implicit Contracts From Britain," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 54(5), pages 661-683, November.
    11. Costain, James S. & Reiter, Michael, 2008. "Business cycles, unemployment insurance, and the calibration of matching models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1120-1155, April.
    12. Darren Grant, 2003. "The Effect of Implicit Contracts on the Movement of Wages over the Business Cycle: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Surveys," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(3), pages 393-408, April.
    13. Blank, Rebecca M, 1990. "Why Are Wages Cyclical in the 1970s?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages 16-47, January.
    14. Gary Solon & Ryan Michaels & Michael W. L. Elsby, 2009. "The Ins and Outs of Cyclical Unemployment," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 84-110, January.
    15. Robert E. Hall & Paul R. Milgrom, 2008. "The Limited Influence of Unemployment on the Wage Bargain," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1653-1674, September.
    16. David Card, 1995. "The Wage Curve: A Review," Working Papers 722, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    17. David Card, 1995. "The Wage Curve: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 285-299, June.
    18. Barlevy, Gadi, 2001. "Why Are the Wages of Job Changers So Procyclical?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(4), pages 837-878, October.
    19. Brandolini, Andrea, 1995. "In Search of a Stylised Fact: Do Real Wages Exhibit a Consistent Pattern of Cyclical Variability?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 103-163, June.
    20. Krause, M.U. & Lubik, T.A., 2004. "On-the-job Search and the Cyclical Dynamics of the Labor Market," Other publications TiSEM 08a72137-ff72-4e18-add3-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    21. Garey Ramey & Wouter J. den Haan & Joel Watson, 2000. "Job Destruction and Propagation of Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 482-498, June.
    22. Burcu Eyigungor, 2010. "Specific Capital and Vintage Effects on the Dynamics of Unemployment and Vacancies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1214-1237, June.
    23. Barro, Robert J., 1977. "Long-term contracting, sticky prices, and monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 305-316, July.
    24. Yashiv, Eran, 2006. "Evaluating the performance of the search and matching model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 909-936, May.
    25. Robert Shimer, 2012. "Reassessing the Ins and Outs of Unemployment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(2), pages 127-148, April.
    26. Leena Rudanko, 2005. "Labor Market Dynamics under Long Term Wage Contracting," 2005 Meeting Papers 876, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    27. Arozamena, Leandro & Centeno, Mario, 2006. "Tenure, business cycle and the wage-setting process," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 401-424, February.
    28. Robert Shimer, 2004. "The Consequences of Rigid Wages in Search Models," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(2-3), pages 469-479, 04/05.
    29. Helge Braun & Reinout De Bock & Riccardo DiCecio, 2006. "Aggregate shocks and labor market fluctuations," Working Papers 2006-004, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    30. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2000. "Equilibrium Unemployment Theory, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262161877, April.
    31. Merz, Monika, 1995. "Search in the labor market and the real business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 269-300, November.
    32. Barnichon, Regis, 2007. "Productivity, aggregate demand and unemployment fluctuations," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19694, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    33. Christopher A. Pissarides & Giovanna Vallanti, 2007. "The Impact Of Tfp Growth On Steady-State Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(2), pages 607-640, May.
    34. Bils, Mark J, 1985. "Real Wages over the Business Cycle: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(4), pages 666-689, August.
    35. James Ted McDonald & Christopher Worswick, 1999. "Wages, Implicit Contracts, and the Business Cycle: Evidence from Canadian Micro Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(4), pages 884-913, August.
    36. Martin Neil Baily, 1974. "Wages and Employment under Uncertain Demand," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(1), pages 37-50.
    37. Pissarides, Christopher A, 1985. "Short-run Equilibrium Dynamics of Unemployment Vacancies, and Real Wages," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 676-690, September.
    38. Azariadis, Costas, 1975. "Implicit Contracts and Underemployment Equilibria," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(6), pages 1183-1202, December.
    39. Donald A. Walker (ed.), 2000. "Equilibrium," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 1585.
    40. Peng, Fei & Siebert, W. Stanley, 2007. "Real Wage Cyclicality in Germany and the UK: New Results Using Panel Data," IZA Discussion Papers 2688, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2009. "The Unemployment Volatility Puzzle: Is Wage Stickiness the Answer?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1339-1369, September.
    2. Rogerson, Richard & Shimer, Robert, 2011. "Search in Macroeconomic Models of the Labor Market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 7, pages Pages: 61, Elsevier.
    3. Leena Rudanko, 2008. "Aggregate and Idiosyncratic Risk in a Frictional Labor Market," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series wp2008-009, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    4. Haefke, Christian & Sonntag, Marcus & van Rens, Thijs, 2013. "Wage rigidity and job creation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 887-899.
    5. Hertweck Matthias Sebastian, 2013. "Strategic wage bargaining, labor market volatility, and persistence," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 123-149, October.
    6. Yashiv, Eran, 2007. "Labor search and matching in macroeconomics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1859-1895, November.
    7. Mark Gertler & Antonella Trigari, 2009. "Unemployment Fluctuations with Staggered Nash Wage Bargaining," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(1), pages 38-86, February.
    8. Domenico Ferraro, 2018. "The Asymmetric Cyclical Behavior of the U.S. Labor Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 145-162, October.
    9. Anger, Silke, 2011. "The Cyclicality of Effective Wages within Employer–Employee Matches in a Rigid Labor Market," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 18(6), pages 786-797.
    10. Federico Di Pace & Matthias Hertweck, 2019. "Labor Market Frictions, Monetary Policy, and Durable Goods," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 274-304, April.
    11. Beauchemin, Kenneth & Tasci, Murat, 2014. "Diagnosing Labor Market Search Models: A Multiple-Shock Approach," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(3), pages 548-572, April.
    12. Alejandro Justiniano & Claudio Michelacci, 2012. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies in the United States and Europe," NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages 169-235.
    13. Anger, Silke, 2007. "The cyclicality of effective wages within employer-employee matches: evidence from German panel data," Working Paper Series 783, European Central Bank.
    14. Mark Gertler & Luca Sala & Antonella Trigari, 2008. "An Estimated Monetary DSGE Model with Unemployment and Staggered Nominal Wage Bargaining," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(8), pages 1713-1764, December.
    15. Leena Rudanko, 2005. "Labor Market Dynamics under Long Term Wage Contracting," 2005 Meeting Papers 876, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Michael W. L. Elsby & Ryan Michaels & David Ratner, 2015. "The Beveridge Curve: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(3), pages 571-630, September.
    17. Matthias S. Hertweck & Vivien Lewis & Stefania Villa, 2021. "Going the Extra Mile: Effort by Workers and Job‐Seekers," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(8), pages 2099-2127, December.
    18. Zhang Min, 2008. "Cyclical Behavior of Unemployment and Job Vacancies: A Comparison between Canada and the United States," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-37, October.
    19. Gabriele Cardullo, 2010. "Matching Models Under Scrutiny: An Appraisal Of The Shimer Puzzle," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 622-656, September.
    20. Miyamoto, Hiroaki, 2011. "Cyclical behavior of unemployment and job vacancies in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 214-225.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment; hours of work; service employment; structural change; labor productivity taxation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:4461. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.