Specific Capital and Vintage Effects on the Dynamics of Unemployment and Vacancies
33 Pages Posted: 6 Sep 2008
Date Written: May 7, 2008
Abstract
In a reasonably calibrated Mortensen and Pissarides matching model, shocks to average labor productivity can account for only a small portion of the fluctuations in unemployment and vacancies (Shimer (2005a)). In this paper, the author argues that if vintage specific shocks rather than aggregate productivity shocks are the driving force of fluctuations, the model does a better job of accounting for the data. She adds heterogeneity in jobs (matches) with respect to the time the job is created in the form of different embodied technology levels. The author also introduces specific capital that, once adapted for a match, has less value in another match. In the quantitative analysis, she shows that shocks to different vintages of entrants are able to account for fluctuations in unemployment and vacancies and that, in this environment, specific capital is important to decreasing the volatility of the destruction rate of existing matches.
Keywords: Search, Matching, Business Cycles, Labor Markets
JEL Classification: E24, E32, J41, J63, J64
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Incentives in Competitive Search Equilibrium
By Espen R. Moen and Asa Rosen
-
The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies Revisited
By Marcus Hagedorn and Iourii Manovskii
-
The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies: Evidence and Theory
-
Incentives in Competitive Search Equilibrium and Wage Rigidity
By Espen R. Moen and Asa Rosen
-
Incentives in Competitive Search Equilibrium and Wage Rigidity
By Espen R. Moen and Asa Rosen
-
Search-Theoretic Models of the Labor Market: A Survey
By Richard Rogerson and Randall Wright
-
Search-Theoretic Models of the Labor Market-A Survey
By Richard Rogerson, Robert Shimer, ...
-
Unemployment Fluctuations with Staggered Nash Wage Bargaining
By Mark Gertler and Antonella Trigari
-
Employer-to-Employer Flows in the U.S. Labor Market: The Complete Picture of Gross Worker Flows
