Using the accurate and extensive data available in the UK New Earnings Survey, this paper investigates the extent to which nominal wages are downwardly rigid and whether such rigidity interferes with necessary real wage adjustments when inflation is low. Despite the substantial numbers of...

This paper seeks to contribute to the literature on downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) along two dimensions. First, we formulate and solve an explicit model of wage-setting in the presence of worker resistance to nominal wage cuts - something that has previously been considered intractable....

This paper considers a real business cycle model with search frictions in the labor market and labor supply which is elastic along the participation margin. Previous authors have found that such models generate counterfactually procyclical unemployment and a positively-sloped Beveridge curve....

In this paper we study the contribution of inflows and outflows to the dynamics of unemployment in three European countries, the United Kingdom, France and Spain. We compare performance in these three countries making use of both administrative and labor force survey data. We find that the...

This paper characterizes optimal unemployment insurance (UI) over the business cycle using a model of equilibrium unemployment in which jobs are rationed in recession. It offers a simple optimal UI formula that can be applied to a broad class of equilibrium unemployment models. In addition to...

This paper illustrates why fiscal policy becomes more effective as unemployment rises in recessions. The theory is based on the equilibrium unemployment model of Michaillat (forthcoming), in which jobs are rationed in recessions. Fiscal policy takes the form of government spending on...

This paper models unemployment as the result of matching frictions and job rationing. Job rationing is a shortage of jobs arising naturally in an economic equilibrium from the combination of some wage rigidity and diminishing marginal returns to labor. During recessions, job rationing is acute,...

This article is based on a paper that models unemployment as the result of matching frictions and job rationing. Job rationing is a shortage of jobs arising naturally in an economic equilibrium from the combination of some wage rigidity and diminishing marginal returns to labor. During...

Does the search and matching model fit aggregate U.S. labor market data? While the model has become an important tool of macroeconomic analysis, recent literature pointed to some failures in accounting for the data. This paper aims to answer two questions: (i) Does the model fit the data, and,...

The labor search and matching model plays a growing role in macroeconomic analysis. This paper provides a critical, selective survey of the literature. Four fundamental questions are explored: how are unemployment, job vacancies, and employment determined as equilibrium phenomena? What...