IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/15166.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Heterogeneity and Cyclical Unemployment

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Bils
  • Yongsung Chang
  • Sun-Bin Kim

Abstract

We model worker heterogeneity in the rents from being employed in a Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model of matching and unemployment. We show that heterogeneity, reflecting differences in match quality and worker assets, reduces the extent of fluctuations in separations and unemployment. We find that the model faces a trade-off--it cannot produce both realistic dispersion in wage growth across workers and realistic cyclical fluctuations in unemployment.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Bils & Yongsung Chang & Sun-Bin Kim, 2009. "Heterogeneity and Cyclical Unemployment," NBER Working Papers 15166, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15166
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15166.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1982. "Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 97-109, January.
    2. Michael Reiter & Christian Haefke, 2006. "Endogenous Labor Market Participation and the Business Cycle," Working Papers 202, Barcelona School of Economics.
    3. Marcus Hagedorn & Iourii Manovskii, 2008. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies Revisited," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1692-1706, September.
    4. 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.
    5. Gomes, Joao & Greenwood, Jeremy & Rebelo, Sergio, 2001. "Equilibrium unemployment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 109-152, August.
    6. Yongsung Chang & Sun-Bin Kim, 2006. "From Individual To Aggregate Labor Supply: A Quantitative Analysis Based On A Heterogeneous Agent Macroeconomy ," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(1), pages 1-27, February.
    7. Enchuan Shao & Pedro Silos, 2007. "Uninsurable individual risk and the cyclical behavior of unemployment and vacancies," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2007-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    8. Coles, Melvyn G. & Wright, Randall, 1998. "A Dynamic Equilibrium Model of Search, Bargaining, and Money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 32-54, January.
    9. Per Krusell & Toshihiko Mukoyama & Ayşegül Şahin, 2010. "Labour-Market Matching with Precautionary Savings and Aggregate Fluctuations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1477-1507.
    10. Tauchen, George, 1986. "Finite state markov-chain approximations to univariate and vector autoregressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-181.
    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. Yongsung Chang & Sun-Bin Kim & Mark Bils, 2007. "Comparative Advantage in Cyclical Unemployment," 2007 Meeting Papers 508, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 659-684.
    14. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 25-49, March.
    15. Robert H. Topel & Michael P. Ward, 1992. "Job Mobility and the Careers of Young Men," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 439-479.
    16. Woodcock, Simon D., 2008. "Wage differentials in the presence of unobserved worker, firm, and match heterogeneity," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 771-793, August.
    17. Makoto Nakajima, 2006. "Business Cycles in the Equilibrium Model of Labor Search and Self-Insurance," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 426, Society for Computational Economics.
    18. Darby, Michael R & Haltiwanger, John C & Plant, Mark W, 1985. "Unemployment Rate Dynamics and Persistent Unemployment under Rational Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 614-637, September.
    19. Michael Pries, 2008. "Worker Heterogeneity and Labor Market Volatility in Matching Models," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(3), pages 664-678, July.
    20. Dale Mortensen & Eva Nagypal, 2007. "More on Unemployment and Vacancy Fluctuations," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(3), pages 327-347, July.
    21. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    22. Yongsung Chang & Sun-Bin Kim, 2007. "Heterogeneity and Aggregation: Implications for Labor-Market Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1939-1956, December.
    23. Andreas Hornstein & Per Krusell & Giovanni L. Violante, 2011. "Frictional Wage Dispersion in Search Models: A Quantitative Assessment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 2873-2898, December.
    24. Baker, Michael, 1992. "Unemployment Duration: Compositional Effects and Cyclical Variability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 313-321, March.
    25. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith & Jr., 1998. "Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Macroeconomy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 867-896, October.
    26. Sider, Hal, 1985. "Unemployment Duration and Incidence: 1968-82," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 461-472, June.
    27. Robert E. Hall, 2005. "Employment Fluctuations with Equilibrium Wage Stickiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 50-65, March.
    28. Marimon, Ramon & Scott, Andrew (ed.), 1999. "Computational Methods for the Study of Dynamic Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198294979.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bils, Mark & Chang, Yongsung & Kim, Sun-Bin, 2012. "Comparative advantage and unemployment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 150-165.
    2. Christian Bayer & Klaus Wälde, 2010. "Matching and Saving in Continuous Time: Theory," CESifo Working Paper Series 3026, CESifo.
    3. Per Krusell & Toshihiko Mukoyama & Ayşegül Şahin, 2010. "Labour-Market Matching with Precautionary Savings and Aggregate Fluctuations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1477-1507.
    4. Kai Liu, 2010. "Wage Risk, On-the-job Search and Partial Insurance," 2010 Meeting Papers 1136, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    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. Yongsung Chang & Sun-Bin Kim & Mark Bils, 2007. "Comparative Advantage in Cyclical Unemployment," 2007 Meeting Papers 508, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Mark Bils & Yongsung Chang & Sun-Bin Kim, 2011. "Worker Heterogeneity and Endogenous Separations in a Matching Model of Unemployment Fluctuations," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 128-154, January.
    3. Bils, Mark & Chang, Yongsung & Kim, Sun-Bin, 2012. "Comparative advantage and unemployment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 150-165.
    4. Per Krusell & Toshihiko Mukoyama & Ayşegül Şahin, 2010. "Labour-Market Matching with Precautionary Savings and Aggregate Fluctuations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1477-1507.
    5. Jochen Mankart & Rigas Oikonomou, 2017. "Household Search and the Aggregate Labour Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(4), pages 1735-1788.
    6. Makoto Nakajima, 2012. "Business Cycles In The Equilibrium Model Of Labor Market Search And Self‐Insurance," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(2), pages 399-432, May.
    7. 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.
    8. Yashiv, Eran, 2007. "Labor search and matching in macroeconomics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1859-1895, November.
    9. Andreas I. Mueller, 2017. "Separations, Sorting, and Cyclical Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(7), pages 2081-2107, July.
    10. Per Krusell & Toshihiko Mukoyama & Richard Rogerson & Aysegul Sahin, 2020. "Gross Worker Flows and Fluctuations in the Aggregate Labor Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 205-226, August.
    11. 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.
    12. Murat Tasci, 2006. "On-the-Job Search and Labor Market Reallocation," 2006 Meeting Papers 333, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Shigeru Fujita & Garey Ramey, 2012. "Exogenous vs. endogenous separation," Working Papers 12-2, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    14. Huo, Zhen, 2016. "Financial Frictions, Asset Prices, and the Great Recession," CEPR Discussion Papers 11544, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Edouard Schaal, 2011. "Uncertainty, Productivity and Unemployment in the Great Depression," 2011 Meeting Papers 1450, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Nils M. Gornemann & Keith Kuester & Makoto Nakajima, 2012. "Monetary policy with heterogeneous agents," Working Papers 12-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    17. Edouard Challe & Julien Matheron & Xavier Ragot & Juan F. Rubio‐Ramirez, 2017. "Precautionary saving and aggregate demand," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(2), pages 435-478, July.
    18. Edouard Challe & Xavier Ragot, 2016. "Precautionary Saving Over the Business Cycle," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(590), pages 135-164, February.
    19. Andreas Hornstein & Per Krusell & Giovanni L. Violante, 2011. "Frictional Wage Dispersion in Search Models: A Quantitative Assessment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 2873-2898, December.
    20. Chassamboulli, Andri, 2013. "Labor-market volatility in a matching model with worker heterogeneity and endogenous separations," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 217-229.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

    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:nbr:nberwo:15166. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.