A search and matching model, when calibrated to the mean and volatility of unemployment in the postwar sample, can … potentially explain the unemployment crisis in the Great Depression. The limited responses of wages from credible bargaining to … labor market conditions, along with the congestion externality from matching frictions, cause the unemployment rate to rise …

We propose and estimate a model where unemployment fluctuations result from self-fulfilling changes in expected … European unemployment rates. They also generate positive comovements in macroeconomic variables and a large relative volatility … fact that liquidity constrained workers, facing earnings uncertainty in the context of imperfect unemployment insurance …