Individual Wage Bargaining and Business Cycles

This paper examines the business cycle properties of business cycle models with search frictions and wage bargaining which rely not only on labor, but also on capital in the production function. In the presence of capital, the choice of bargaining framework matters, even under perfect competition and constant returns to scale. In particular, under individual bargaining, the welfare theorems do not hold, due to a hold-up effect in capital and a hiring externality, so that solving a planner's problem is not sufficient. I examine the business cycle properties of the decentralized model with individual bargaining under alternative calibration strategiesBusiness Cycles, Wage Bargaining, Search Frictions, Capital

Why are Asset Returns More Volatile during Recessions? A Theoretical Explanation

During recessions, many macroeconomic variables display higher levels of volatility. We show how introducing an AR(1)-ARCH(1) driving process into the canonical Lucas consumption CAPM framework can account for the empirically observed greater volatility of asset returns during recessions. In particular, agents' joint forecasting of levels and time-varing second moments transforms symmetric-volatility driving processes into asymmetric-volatility endogenous variables. Moreover, numerical examples show that the model can indeed account for the degree of cyclical variation in both bond and equity returns in the U.S. data. Finally, we argue that the underlying mechanism is not specific to financial markets, and has the potential to explain cyclical variation in the volatilities of a wide variety of macroeconomic variables.

Resurrecting the Participation Margin

This paper considers a real business cycle model with search frictions in the labor market and labor supply which is elastic along the participation margin. Previous authors have found that such models generate counterfactually procyclical unemployment and a positively-sloped Beveridge curve. This paper presents a calibrated model which succeeds at generating countercyclical unemployment and a negatively-sloped Beveridge curve despite the presence of a participation margin.Unemployment, Business Cycles, Labor Force Participation

Real Origins of the Great Depression: Monopoly Power, Unions and the American Business Cycle in the 1920s

We attempt to explain the severe 1920-21 recession, the roaring 1920s boom, and the slide into the Great Depression after 1929 in a unified framework. The model combines monopolistic product market competition with search frictions in the labor market, allowing for both individual and collective wage bargaining. We attribute the extraordinary macroeconomic and financial volatility of this period to two factors: Shifts in the wage bargaining regime and in the degree of monopoly power in the economy. A shift from individual to collective bargaining presents as a recession, involving declines in output and asset values, and increases in unemployment and real wages. The pro-union provisions of the Clayton Act of 1914 facilitated the rise of collective bargaining after World War I, leading to the asset price crash and recession of 1920-21. A series of tough anti-union Supreme Court decisions in late 1921 induced a shift back to individual bargaining, leading the economy out of the recession. This, coupled with the lax anti-trust enforcement of the Coolidge and Hoover administrations enabled a major rise in corporate profits and stock market valuations throughout the 1920s. Landmark pro-union court decisions in the late 1920s, as well as political pressure on firms to adopt the welfare capitalism model of high wages, led to collapsing profit expectations, contributing substantially to the stock market crash. We model the onset of the Great Depression as an equilibrium switch from individual wage bargaining to (actual or mimicked) collective wage bargaining. The general equilibrium effects of this regime change are consistent with large decreases in output, employment, and stock prices and moderate increases in real wages.Trade unions, collective bargaining, Great Depression

Product Market Deregulation and the U.S. Employment Miracle

We consider the dynamic relationship between product market entry regulation and equilibrium unemployment. The main theoretical contribution is combining a job matching model with monopolistic competition in the goods market and individual bargaining. We calibrate the model to US data and perform a policy experiment to assess whether the decrease in trend unemployment during the 1980's and 1990's could be attributed to product market deregulation. Under a traditional calibration, our results suggest that a decrease of less than two-tenths of a percentage point of unemployment rates can be attributed to product market deregulation, a surprisingly small amount. Under a small surplus calibration, however, product market deregulation can account for the entire decline in US trend unemployment over the 1980's and 1990's.Product market competition, barriers to entry, wage bargaining

Product Market Deregulation and the U.S. Employment Miracle

We consider the dynamic relationship between product market entry regulation and equilibrium unemployment. The main theoretical contribution is combining a job matching model with monopolistic competition in the goods market and individual bargaining. We calibrate the model to US data and perform a policy experiment to assess whether the decrease in trend unemployment during the 1980’s and 1990’s could be directly attributed to product market deregulation. Under a traditional calibration, our results suggest that a decrease of less than two-tenths of a percentage point of unemployment rates can be attributed to product market deregulation, a surprisingly small amount. Under a small surplus calibration, however, product market deregulation can account for the entire decline in US trend unemployment over the 1980’s and 1990’s.Product market competition, Barriers to entry, Wage bargaining

Product market deregulation and the U.S. employment miracle

We consider the dynamic relationship between product market entry regulation and equilibrium unemployment. The main theoretical contribution is combining a job matching model with monopolistic competition in the goods market and individual wage bargaining. Product market competition affects unemployment by two channels: the output expansion effect and a countervailing effect due to a hiring externality. Competition is then linked to barriers to entry. We calibrate the model to US data and perform a policy experiment to assess whether the decrease in trend unemployment during the 1980’s and 1990’s could be attributed to product market deregulation. Our quantitative analysis suggests that under individual bargaining, a decrease of less than two tenths of a percentage point of unemployment rates can be attributed to product market deregulation, a surprisingly small amount.Product market competition, barriers to entry, wage bargaining

Product Market Deregulation and Labor Market Outcomes

Recently, the interactions between product market structure and labor market outcomes have come under increased scrutiny. This paper considers the dynamic relationship between product market regulation and equilibrium unemployment and wages, both theoretically and quantitatively. The main elements of our model are Mortensen-Pissarides-style search and matching frictions, monopolistic competition in the goods market, multi-worker firms and barriers to entry. Our measure of competition has a strong impact on equilibrium unemployment rates and on equilibrium wages, indicating that product market competition does indeed have quantitatively significant effects on labor market outcomes. Most of the impact is achieved by moving from a monopoly to four to five competing firms per industry. Hence, a little bit of competition goes a long way. Competition is then linked to a specific regulatory institution, namely barriers to entry. Data on entry costs are used to compare labor market performance under two regimes: a high-regulation European regime and a low-regulation Anglo-American one. When firms are short-lived, greater European product market regulation can account for unemployment rates that are one to two full percent points greater that the corresponding Anglo-American values.

Product market deregulation and labor market outcomes

We consider the dynamic relationship between product market entry regulation and equilibrium unemployment. The main theoretical contribution is combining a Mortensen-Pissarides model with monopolistic competition in the goods market and individual wage bargaining. Product market competition affects unemployment via two channels: the output expansion effect and a countervailing effect due to a hiring externality. Competition is then linked to barriers to entry. A calibrated model compares a high-regulation European regime to a low-regulation Anglo-American one. Our quantitative analysis suggests that under individual bargaining, no more than half a percentage point of European unemployment rates can be attributed to entry regulation.Product market competition, barriers to entry, wage bargaining, European Unemployment Puzzle

Real Origins of the Great Depression: Monopolistic Competition, Union Power, and the American Business Cycle in the 1920s

Most treatments of the Great Depression have focused on its onset and its aftermath. In contrast, we take a unified view of the interwar period. We look at the slide into and the emergence from the 1920-21 recession and the roaring 1920s boom, as well as the slide into the Great Depression after 1929, and attempt to explain these phenomena in a unified framework. The model framework combines monopolistic product market competition with search frictions and bargaining in the labor market, allowing for both individual and collective (unionized) wage bargaining. We attribute the extraordinary macroeconomic and financial volatility of this period to two factors: Shifts in the wage bargaining regime and in the degree of monopoly power in the economy. The pro-union provisions of the Clayton Act of 1914 contributed to the slide in asset prices and the depression of 1920-21, while a series of tough anti-union Supreme Court decisions in late 1921 and 1922 coupled with the lax anti-trust enforcement of the Coolidge and Hoover administrations enabled a major rise in corporate profits and stock market valuations throughout the 1920s. Landmark court decisions in favor of trade unions in the late 1920s, as well as political pressure on firms to adopt the welfare capitalism model of high wages, made the economy increasingly susceptible to collapsing profit expectations. We model the onset of the great depression as an equilibrium switch from individual wage bargaining to (actual or mimicked) collective wage bargaining. The general equilibrium effects of this regime change are consistent with large decreases in output, employment, and stock prices.Trade unions, collective bargaining, Great Depression