Working Paper
Demand-driven job separation: reconciling search models with the ins and outs of unemployment
Abstract: This paper presents a search model of unemployment with a new mechanism of job separation based on firms' demand constraints. The model is consistent with the cyclical behavior of labor market variables and can account for three stylized facts about unemployment that the Mortensen-Pissarides (1994) model has difficulties explaining jointly: (i) the unemployment-vacancy correlation is negative, (ii) the contribution of the job separation rate to unemployment fluctuations is small but non-trivial, (iii) movements in the job separation rate are sharp and short-lived while movements in the job finding rate are persistent. In addition, the model can rationalize two hitherto unexplained findings: why unemployment inflows were less important in the last two decades, and why the asymmetric behavior of unemployment weakened after 1985.
Keywords: Labor market; Unemployment;
Access Documents
File(s): File format is text/html http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2009/200924/200924abs.html
File(s): File format is application/pdf http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2009/200924/200924pap.pdf
Authors
Bibliographic Information
Provider: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.)
Part of Series: Finance and Economics Discussion Series
Publication Date: 2009
Number: 2009-24