We document three changes in postwar US macroeconomic dynamics: (i) the procyclicality of labor productivity has vanished, (ii) the relative volatility of employment has risen, and (iii) the relative (and absolute) volatility of the real wage has risen. We propose an explanation for all three...

This paper provides a model that can account for the almost uniform staggering of wage contracts in some countries as well as for the markedly nonuniform staggering in others. In the model, short and long contracts as well as long contracts concluded in different periods are strategic...

Dieser Beitrag vergleicht die automatischen Stabilisierungswirkungen der Steuer- und Transfersysteme in der Europäischen Union und in den USA in der aktuellen Wirtschaftskrise. Dazu werden zwei Szenarien simuliert: erstens ein proportionaler Einkommensschock, in dem alle Bruttoeinkommen um 5...

Based largely on industry-level aggregate statistics, the prevailing view, and one that has strongly influenced macroeconomic thought, is that real wages during the cycle containing the Great Depression are either acyclical or countercyclical. Does this finding hold-up when more micro data are...

In oligopsonistic labour markets, firms have some market power, and a wedge is created between wages and marginal product. When oligopsonistic firms' production technology requires generally trained workers, firms may therefore receive part of the returns to general training and be willing to...

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 provides a new explanation of why inflation is sluggish in response to aggregate demand shocks and why aggregate output changes as result of such shocks. We argue that these phenomena are related to lags between inputs and outputs in the production process, "production lags" for...

Using a large panel of administrative records this study confirms the predictions of the ranking model of Blanchard and Diamond (1994) that an individual’s probability of leaving unemployment decreases with unemployment duration and increases with economic growth. However, the ranking model of...

In this paper, we propose a search and matching model with nominal stickiness à la Calvo in the wage bargaining. We analyze the properties of the model, first, in the context of a typical real business cycle model driven by stochastic productivity shocks and second, in a fully specified...

We consider a model with frictional unemployment and staggered wage bargaining where hours worked are negotiated every period. The workers' bargaining power in the hours negotiation affects both unemployment volatility and inflation persistence. The closer to zero this parameter, (i) the more...