American Economic Journal:
Macroeconomics
ISSN 1945-7707 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7715 (Online)
Endogenous Separations, Wage Rigidities, and Unemployment Volatility
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
(pp. 332–54)
Abstract
We show that in microdata, as well as in a search and matching model with flexible wages for new hires, wage rigidities of incumbent workers have substantial effects on separations and unemployment volatility. Allowing for an empirically relevant degree of wage rigidities for incumbent workers drives unemployment volatility as well as the volatility of vacancies and tightness to that in the data. Thus, the degree of wage rigidity for newly hired workers is not a sufficient statistic for determining the effect of wage rigidities on macroeconomic outcomes. This finding affects the interpretation of a large empirical literature on wage rigidities.Citation
Carlsson, Mikael, and Andreas Westermark. 2022. "Endogenous Separations, Wage Rigidities, and Unemployment Volatility." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 14 (1): 332–54. DOI: 10.1257/mac.20180314Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- E24 Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
- J23 Labor Demand
- J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
- J41 Labor Contracts
- J63 Labor Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs