IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/htr/hcecon/437.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Job Hoarding

Author

Abstract

We study a labor market in which principals and agents must search for a trading partner, and agents have private information about the value of a match. We show that competitive pressure can induce agents to lie and over-state the value of the match. This leads to insufficient frictional unemployment and search, and lower average productivity and utility. A fully tax-financed unemployment insurance can therefore eliminate the inefficiency. Moreover, because inefficient “job-hoarding” by workers occurs when there are many workers per job, the analysis provides a novel explanation for the stylized macroeconomic fact that labor productivity is procyclical.

Suggested Citation

  • Ingmar Nyman & Matthew Baker, 2012. "Job Hoarding," Economics Working Paper Archive at Hunter College 437, Hunter College Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:htr:hcecon:437
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econ.hunter.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/RePEc/papers/HunterEconWP437.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Prescott, Edward C., 1986. "Theory ahead of business-cycle measurement," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 11-44, January.
    2. Fredriksson, Peter & Holmlund, Bertil, 2001. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance in Search Equilibrium," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 370-399, April.
    3. Shavell, Steven & Weiss, Laurence, 1979. "The Optimal Payment of Unemployment Insurance Benefits over Time," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1347-1362, December.
    4. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman, 2007. "Beauty Is a Beast, Frog Is a Prince: Assortative Matching with Nontransferabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1073-1102, July.
    5. Bernanke, Ben S & Parkinson, Martin L, 1991. "Procyclical Labor Productivity and Competing Theories of the Business Cycle: Some Evidence from Interwar U.S. Manufacturing Industries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 439-459, June.
    6. Andreas Pollak, 2008. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance with Variable Skill Levels," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 164(4), pages 696-726, December.
    7. Acemoglu, Daron & Shimer, Robert, 2000. "Productivity gains from unemployment insurance," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1195-1224, June.
    8. Inderst, Roman, 2005. "Matching markets with adverse selection," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 145-166, April.
    9. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2006. "Media Bias and Reputation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 280-316, April.
    10. Ken Burdett & Melvyn G. Coles, 1997. "Marriage and Class," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 141-168.
    11. Jason G. Cummins & Ingmar Nyman, 2005. "The Dark Side of Competitive Pressure," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(2), pages 361-397, Summer.
    12. Adam Brandenburger & Ben Polak, 1996. "When Managers Cover Their Posteriors: Making the Decisions the Market Wants to See," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(3), pages 523-541, Autumn.
    13. Atkinson, Anthony B & Micklewright, John, 1991. "Unemployment Compensation and Labor Market Transitions: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1679-1727, December.
    14. Hopenhayn, Hugo A & Nicolini, Juan Pablo, 1997. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 412-438, April.
    15. Burnside, Craig & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1996. "Factor-Hoarding and the Propagation of Business-Cycle Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1154-1174, December.
    16. Burdett Kenneth & Imai Ryoichi & Wright Randall, 2004. "Unstable Relationships," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-44, January.
    17. Roman Inderst, 2001. "Screening in a Matching Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(4), pages 849-868.
    18. Burnside, Craig & Eichenbaum, Martin & Rebelo, Sergio, 1993. "Labor Hoarding and the Business Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 245-273, April.
    19. Hall, Robert E., 1987. "Productivity and the business cycle," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 421-444, January.
    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. Matthew Baker & Ingmar Nyman, 2009. "Competitive Pressure and Lying in Search Markets," Economics Working Paper Archive at Hunter College 426, Hunter College Department of Economics.
    2. Ingmar Nyman & Matthew Baker, 2008. "Conformity in search markets," Economics Working Paper Archive at Hunter College 422, Hunter College Department of Economics.
    3. Schwartz, J., 2015. "Optimal unemployment insurance: When search takes effort and money," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-17.
    4. Milan Vodopivec, 2004. "Income Support for the Unemployed : Issues and Options," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14922.
    5. Gilles Joseph & Thomas Weitzenblum, 2003. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance: Transitional Dynamics vs. Steady State," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(4), pages 869-884, October.
    6. Edi Karni, 1999. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance: A Survey," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(2), pages 442-465, October.
    7. Solenne Tanguy, 2005. "Gains de productivité et contrôle de la recherche d'emploi," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00113481, HAL.
    8. Peter Fredriksson & Bertil Holmlund, 2006. "Improving Incentives in Unemployment Insurance: A Review of Recent Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 357-386, July.
    9. Heer, Burkhard, 2003. "Employment and Welfare Effects of a Two-Tier Unemployment Compensation System," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(2), pages 147-168, March.
    10. Serdar Birinci & Kurt Gerrard See, 2018. "How Should Unemployment Insurance vary over the Business Cycle?," 2018 Meeting Papers 69, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Sebastien Menard & Solenne Tanguy, 2017. "Revisiting Hopenhayn and Nicolini 's optimal unemployment insurance with job search monitoring and sanctions," TEPP Working Paper 2017-08, TEPP.
    12. Demougin, Dominique M. & Helm, Carsten, 2008. "Incentive contracts and efficient unemployment benefits," Darmstadt Discussion Papers in Economics 191, Darmstadt University of Technology, Department of Law and Economics.
    13. Cahuc, Pierre & Lehmann, Etienne, 2000. "Should unemployment benefits decrease with the unemployment spell?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 135-153, July.
    14. Michau, Jean-Baptiste, 2015. "Optimal labor market policy with search frictions and risk-averse workers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 93-107.
    15. Solenne Tanguy, 2005. "Gains de productivité et contrôle de la recherche d'emploi," Post-Print halshs-00113481, HAL.
    16. Carlos medina & Jairo Núñez & Jorge Andrés Tamayo, 2013. "The Unemployment Subsidy Program in Colombia: An Assessment," Borradores de Economia 750, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    17. repec:dar:wpaper:35490 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Vodopivec, Milan & Raju, Dhushyanth, 2002. "Income support systems for the unemployed : issues and options," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 25529, The World Bank.
    19. Evans, Charles L. & Marshall, David A., 2007. "Economic determinants of the nominal treasury yield curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 1986-2003, October.
    20. Andreas Pollak, 2008. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance with Variable Skill Levels," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 164(4), pages 696-726, December.
    21. Brigitte Dormont & Denis Fougère & Ana Prieto, 2001. "L'effet de l'allocation unique dégressive sur la reprise d'emploi," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 343(1), pages 3-28.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Search; Private Information; Competition; Labor Productivity; Unemployment Insurance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:htr:hcecon:437. 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: Jonathan Conning (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dhcunus.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.