IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/sfb649/sfb649dp2008-056.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Lumpy labor adjustment as a propagation mechanism of business cycles

Author

Listed:
  • Yao, Fang

Abstract

I explore the aggregate effects of micro lumpy labor adjustment in a prototypical RBC model, which embeds a stochastic labor duration mechanism in the spirit of Calvo(1983), and it extends this approach by introducing a Weibull-distributed labor adjustment process to capture the increasing hazard function corroborated by the micro data. My principal findings are: The aggregate labor demand equation derived from the baseline Calvostyle model corresponds to the same reduced form as the quadratic-adjustment-cost model and deep parameters have a one-to-one mapping. However, this result does not hold in general. When introducing the Weibull labor adjustment, the aggregate dynamics vary with the extent of increasing hazard function, e.g., the volatility of aggregate labor is increasing, but the persistence is decreasing in degree of the increasing hazard of the labor adjustment.

Suggested Citation

  • Yao, Fang, 2008. "Lumpy labor adjustment as a propagation mechanism of business cycles," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2008-056, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:sfb649:sfb649dp2008-056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/25299/1/584573006.PDF
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benhabib Jess & Farmer Roger E. A., 1994. "Indeterminacy and Increasing Returns," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 19-41, June.
    2. José Varejão & Pedro Portugal, 2007. "Employment Dynamics and the Structure of Labor Adjustment Costs," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 137-165.
    3. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Gerard A. Pfann, 1996. "Adjustment Costs in Factor Demand," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(3), pages 1264-1292, September.
    4. Aubhik Khan & Julia K. Thomas, 2008. "Idiosyncratic Shocks and the Role of Nonconvexities in Plant and Aggregate Investment Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(2), pages 395-436, March.
    5. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Kahn, Charles M, 1980. "The Solution of Linear Difference Models under Rational Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(5), pages 1305-1311, July.
    6. Cogley, Timothy & Nason, James M, 1995. "Output Dynamics in Real-Business-Cycle Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 492-511, June.
    7. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    8. Robert G. King & Julia K. Thomas, 2006. "Partial Adjustment Without Apology," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(3), pages 779-809, August.
    9. Andrew S. Caplin & Daniel F. Spulber, 1987. "Menu Costs and the Neutrality of Money," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(4), pages 703-725.
    10. Letterie, Wilko A. & Pfann, Gerard A. & Polder, J. Michael, 2004. "Factor adjustment spikes and interrelation: an empirical investigation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 145-150, November.
    11. Julio J. Rotemberg, 1987. "The New Keynesian Microfoundations," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1987, Volume 2, pages 69-116, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Uhlig, H.F.H.V.S., 1995. "A toolkit for analyzing nonlinear dynamic stochastic models easily," Discussion Paper 1995-97, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    13. King, Robert G. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1999. "Resuscitating real business cycles," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 927-1007, Elsevier.
    14. Ricardo J. Caballero & Eduardo M. R. A. Engel, 1993. "Microeconomic Adjustment Hazards and Aggregate Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 359-383.
    15. Julia K. Thomas, 2002. "Is Lumpy Investment Relevant for the Business Cycle?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 508-534, June.
    16. Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1989. "Labor Demand and the Structure of Adjustment Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 674-689, September.
    17. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 25-49, March.
    18. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1988. "Production, growth and business cycles : I. The basic neoclassical model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 195-232.
    19. Caballero, Ricardo J & Engel, Eduardo M R A & Haltiwanger, John, 1997. "Aggregate Employment Dynamics: Building from Microeconomic Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 115-137, March.
    20. Robert E. Hall, 2005. "Employment Fluctuations with Equilibrium Wage Stickiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 50-65, March.
    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. Fahr, Stephan & Yao, Fang, 2009. "When does lumpy factor adjustment matter for aggregate dynamics?," Working Paper Series 1016, European Central Bank.

    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. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2008-056 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2008-022 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Yao, Fang, 2008. "Lumpy labor adjustment as a propagation mechanism of business cycles," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2008-022, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    4. Fahr, Stephan & Yao, Fang, 2009. "When does lumpy factor adjustment matter for aggregate dynamics?," Working Paper Series 1016, European Central Bank.
    5. Isaac Baley & Andrés Blanco, 2021. "Aggregate Dynamics in Lumpy Economies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(3), pages 1235-1264, May.
    6. Oivind A. Nilsen & Joao M. Ejarque, 2007. "Identifying Adjustment Costs of Net and Gross Employment Changes," 2007 Meeting Papers 670, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Robert G. King & Julia K. Thomas, 2006. "Partial Adjustment Without Apology," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(3), pages 779-809, August.
    8. Blatter, Marc & Muehlemann, Samuel & Schenker, Samuel, 2012. "The costs of hiring skilled workers," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 20-35.
    9. Robert G. King & Julia K. Thomas, 2006. "Partial Adjustment Without Apology," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(3), pages 779-809, August.
    10. Gaurav Saroliya, 2007. "The New Keynesian Business Cycle Achievements and Challenges," Discussion Papers 07/20, Department of Economics, University of York.
    11. 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.
    12. Jordi Galí & Thijs van Rens, 2021. "The Vanishing Procyclicality of Labour Productivity [Why have business cycle fluctuations become less volatile?]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 302-326.
    13. Nicholas Bloom & Max Floetotto & Nir Jaimovich & Itay Saporta†Eksten & Stephen J. Terry, 2018. "Really Uncertain Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(3), pages 1031-1065, May.
    14. Dotsey, Michael & King, Robert G., 2005. "Implications of state-dependent pricing for dynamic macroeconomic models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 213-242, January.
    15. Lapatinas, Athanasios, 2009. "Labour adjustment costs: Estimation of a dynamic discrete choice model using panel data for Greek manufacturing firms," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 521-533, October.
    16. Sergio Rebelo, 2005. "Real Business Cycle Models: Past, Present, and Future," NBER Working Papers 11401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Martin Andreasen & Marcelo Ferman & Pawel Zabczyk, 2013. "The Business Cycle Implications of Banks' Maturity Transformation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(4), pages 581-600, October.
    18. R?diger Bachmann & Ricardo J. Caballero & Eduardo M. R. A. Engel, 2013. "Aggregate Implications of Lumpy Investment: New Evidence and a DSGE Model," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 29-67, October.
    19. Sergio Rebelo, 2005. "Real Business Cycle Models: Past, Present and Future," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 107(2), pages 217-238, June.
    20. Renato Faccini & Eran Yashiv, 2022. "The importance of hiring frictions in business cycles," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), pages 1101-1143, July.
    21. Ruediger Bachmann & Eduardo Engel & Ricardo Caballero, 2006. "Lumpy Investment in Dynamic General Equilibrium," 2006 Meeting Papers 775, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    22. Ichiro Takahashi, 2021. "An Artificial Wicksell—Keynes Macroeconomy," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-981-16-6839-5, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business cycles; heterogeneous labor rigidity; increasing hazard function; Weibull distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • C68 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computable General Equilibrium Models

    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:zbw:sfb649:sfb649dp2008-056. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sohubde.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.