When workers are exposed to human capital depreciation during periods of unemployment, hiring affects the unemployment pool’s composition in terms of skills, and hence the economy’s production potential. Introducing human capital depreciation during unemployment into an otherwise standard...

We extend the standard textbook search and matching model by introducing deep habits in consumption. The cyclical fluctuations of vacancies and unemployment in our model can replicate those observed in the US data, with labour market tightness being 20 times more volatile than consumption....

We estimate a New Keynesian model with matching frictions and nominal wage rigidities on UK data. We are able to identify important structural parameters, recover the unobservable shocks that have affected the UK economy since 1971 and study the transmission mechanism. With matching frictions,...

This paper reviews recent approaches to modelling the labour market, and assesses their implications for inflation dynamics through both their effect on marginal cost and on price-setting behaviour. In a search and matching environment, we consider the following modelling set-ups:...

The notion that the long-term unemployed are relatively detached from the labour market and therefore exert only little downward pressure on wage inflation has regained significant traction recently. This paper investigates whether the conclusion that long-term unemployment is only weakly...

This paper examines labour supply adjustment – both hours worked and participation decisions. The analysis focuses on the response of each to financial shocks, employing data from the British Household Panel Survey. Results suggest that employees whose financial situation deteriorates relative...

In this paper I use the Labour Force Survey to obtain stylised facts about worker gross flows in the United Kingdom. I analyse the size and cyclicality of the flows between employment, unemployment and inactivity. I also examine job-to-job flows, employment separations by reason, flows between...

Skill erosion during unemployment was of particular concern as unemployment duration increased in the Great Recession. I argue that it generates an externality in job creation: firms ignore how their hiring decisions affect the unemployment pool’s skill composition, and hence the output...

The behaviour of labour productivity in the United Kingdom since the onset of the recession in early 2008 constitutes a puzzle. Over four years after the recession began labour productivity is still below its previous peak level. This paper considers the hypothesis that economic capacity can be...