Working Paper

Technology shocks, employment, and labor market frictions

Abstract: Recent empirical evidence suggests that a positive technology shock leads to a decline in labor inputs. However, the standard real business cycle model fails to account for this empirical regularity. Can the presence of labor market frictions address this problem without otherwise altering the functioning of the model? We develop and estimate a real business cycle model using Bayesian techniques that allows but does not require labor market frictions to generate a negative response of employment to a technology shock. The results of the estimation support the hypothesis that labor market frictions are responsible for the negative response of employment.

Keywords: Econometric models; technological innovations; Labor market;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Part of Series: FRB Atlanta Working Paper

Publication Date: 2008

Number: 2008-10