درس های سیاست کلان اقتصادی از اصطکاک بازار کار

The paper explores the consequences of macroeconomic policy for labor market outcomes in the presence of frictions. It shows how policy may be useful in over-riding frictions, as well as how it might generate adverse outcomes. A partial-equilibrium, empirically grounded model is used to simulate policy effects. The key results are that policy has effects on the stochastic behavior of key variables – measures that reduce unemployment also reduce its persistence and increase the volatility of vacancies. Hiring subsidies and unemployment benefits have substantial effects on labor market outcomes, while employment subsidies or wage tax reductions are not very effective policy instruments.

The importance of the role of labor market frictions in aggregate fluctuations is increasingly recognized.1 Much attention has also been given to movements in the ‘natural rate of unemployment,’ a concept which is closely linked to the existence of frictions. It has been argued that government policy may have an effect on this equilibrium rate; for example, several authors have claimed that the implementation of certain policies explain, at least partially, high unemployment rates in Europe.2 This paper explores the labor market consequences of macroeconomic policy in the presence of frictions. It seeks to address the following questions: Given frictions, how does government policy affect key labor market outcomes in the steady state and what effects does it have on their business cycle properties? More specifically, the paper explores the decline in unemployment following the implementation of different policy measures, the “cost-effectiveness” of each measure, and the changes in the stochastic behavior of unemployment and other key outcomes that follow each policy.

The paper presented an empirically grounded model of the effects of policy in the presence of labor market frictions. The calibrated model, using VAR estimates of the dynamics of the exogenous variables, fits both the data averages of the variables and their business cycle moments. A simulation analysis has quantified the effects of policy measures on the cyclical behavior and steady-state values of the rates of unemployment and vacancies, their duration, firms’ match profits (both per period and the expected present value) and workers’ wages. The main conclusions from the quantitative analysis are: