Firing Costs and Business Cycle Fluctuations

Abstract

This paper evaluates to what extent the introduction of firing costs can affect the aggregate dynamics of a neoclassical growth model with heterogeneous establishments. Similarly to the previous literature, firing costs are found to have large steady-state effects. However, they have no important effects on business cycle dynamics: Aggregate employment fluctuations are somewhat smaller when the firing costs are introduced, but most of the effects turn out to be insignificant.