Comparative Advantage and Skill-Specific Unemployment

We introduce unemployment and endogenous selection of workers into different skill-classes in a trade model with two sectors and heterogeneous firms. This allows us to study the distributional consequences and the skill-specific unemployment effects of trade liberalization. We show that the gains from trade will be distributed very unequally. While unskilled workers loose in terms of real wages and employment levels in the skilled labor intensive sector, skilled workers loose in terms of real wages and unemployment levels in the unskilled labor intensive sector. However, the inequality of workers between sectors is much larger for skilled labor than for unskilled labor. On average, unemployment among unskilled workers increases when a skill-abundant country opens up to trade.comparative advantage, heterogeneous firms, labor market frictions, unemployment, trade liberalization

Fiscal Multipliers and the Labour Market in the Open Economy

Several contributions have recently assessed the size of fiscal multipliers both in RBC models and New Keynesian models. None of the studies considers a model with frictional labour markets which is a crucial element, particularly at times in which much of the fiscal stimulus has been directed toward labour market measures. We use an open economy model (more specifically, a currency area calibrated to the European Monetary Union) with labour market frictions in the form of labour turnover costs and workers’ heterogeneity to measure fiscal multipliers. We compute short and long run multipliers and open economy spillovers for five types of fiscal packages: pure demand stimuli and consumption tax cuts return very small multipliers; income tax cuts and hiring subsidies deliver larger multipliers, as they reduce distortions in sclerotic labour markets; short-time work (German "Kurzarbeit") returns negative short-run multipliers, but stabilises employment. Our model highlights a novel dimension through which multipliers operate, namely the labour demand stimulus which occurs in a model with non-walrasian labour markets.fiscal multipliers, fiscal packages, labour market frictions

Endogenous Labor Market Insitutions in an Open Economy

The paper sets up a two-country asymmetric trade model with heterogeneous firms,search frictions and endogenous labor market institutions. Countries are linked by tradein goods and non-cooperatively set unemployment benefits to maximize national welfare.We show that more open and smaller economies have more generous unemploymentbenefit replacement rates as a larger fraction of the costs is borne by foreign tradingpartners. These results are in line with empirical stylized facts. Additionally, we findthat the optimal level of unemployment benefits is independent from the level of unemploymentbenefits abroad and that non-cooperatively set unemployment rates areinefficiently high.Endogenous labor market institutions, unemployment, international trade, search frictions, heterogeneous firms

Monetary Persistence and the Labor Market: A New Perspective

In this paper we propose a novel way to model the labor market in the context of a New-Keynesian general equilibrium model, incorporating labor market frictions in the form of hiring and firing costs. We show that such a model is able to replicate many important stylized facts of the business cycle. The reactions to monetary and real shocks become much more sluggish. Job creation and job destruction are negatively correlated. And the volatility of unemployment is much larger than in the standard search and matching model.monetary persistence, labor market, hiring and firing costs

Unemployment in an interdependent world

We introduce search and matching unemployment into a model of trade with differentiated goods and heterogeneous firms. Countries may differ with respect to size, geographical location, and labor market institutions. Contrary to the literature, our single-sector perspective pays special attention to the role of income effects and shows that bad institutions in one country worsen labor market outcomes not only in that country but also in its trading partners. This spill-over effect is conditioned by trade costs and country size: smaller and/or more centrally located nations suffer less from inefficient policies at home and are more heavily affected from spill-overs abroad than larger and/or peripheral ones. We offer empirical evidence for a panel of 20 rich OECD countries. Carefully controlling for institutional features and for business cycle comovements between countries, we confirm our qualitative theoretical predictions. However, the magnitude of spill-over effects is larger in the data than in the theoretical model. We show that introducing real wage rigidity can remedy this problem. --Spill-over effects of labor market institutions,unemployment,international trade,search frictions,heterogeneous firms

Labor Turnover Costs, Workers' Heterogeneity, and Optimal Monetary Policy

We study the design of optimal monetary policy in a New Keynesian model with labor turnover costs in which wages are set according to a right to manage bargaining where the firms' counterpart is given by currently employed workers. Our model captures well the salient features of European labor market, as it leads to sclerotic dynamics of worker flows. The coexistence of those types of labor market frictions alongside with sticky prices gives rise to a non-trivial trade-off for the monetary authority. In this framework, firms and current employees extract rents and the policy maker finds it optimal to use state contingent inflation taxes/subsidies to smooth those rents. Hence, in the optimal Ramsey plan, inflation deviates from zero and the optimal volatility of inflation is an increasing function of firing costs. The optimal rule should react to employment alongside inflation.optimal monetary policy, hiring and firing costs, labor market frictions, policy trade-off

Unemployment in an Interdependent World

We introduce search and matching unemployment into a model of trade with differentiated goods and heterogeneous firms. Countries may differ with respect to size, geographical location, and labor market institutions. Contrary to the literature, our single-sector perspective pays special attention to the role of income effects and shows that bad institutions in one country worsen labor market outcomes not only in that country but also in its trading partners. This spill-over effect is conditioned by trade costs and country size: smaller and/or more centrally located nations suffer less from inefficient policies at home and are more heavily affected from spill-overs abroad than larger and/or peripheral ones. We offer empirical evidence for a panel of 20 rich OECD countries. Carefully controlling for institutional features and for business cycle comovements between countries, we confirm our qualitative theoretical predictions. However, the magnitude of spill-over effects is larger in the data than in the theoretical model. We show that introducing real wage rigidity can remedy this problem.spill-over effects of labor market institutions, unemployment, international trade, search frictions, heterogeneous firms

Firing costs and the business cycle: Policy implications in light of the financial crisis.

This lecture is a tour dhorizon of the financial crisis aimed at extracting lessons for future financial regulation. It combines normative recommendations based on conventional welfare economics with positive assessments of the kind of measures likely to be adopted based on political economy considerations.Konjunktur; Kündigung; Arbeitsmobilität; Kosten; Währungsunion; Arbeitnehmerschutz;

Unemployment in an interdependent world

We introduce search and matching unemployment into a model of trade with differentiated goods and heterogeneous firms. Countries may differ with respect to size, geographical location, and labor market institutions. Contrary to the literature, our single-sector perspective pays special attention to the role of income effects and shows that bad institutions in one country worsen labor market outcomes not only in that country but also in its trading partners. This spill-over effect is conditioned by trade costs and country size: smaller and/or more centrally located nations suffer less from inefficient policies at home and are more heavily affected from spill-overs abroad than larger and/or peripheral ones. We offer empirical evidence for a panel of 20 rich OECD countries. Carefully controlling for institutional features and for business cycle comovements between countries, we confirm our qualitative theoretical predictions. However, the magnitude of spill-over effects is larger in the data than in the theoretical model. We show that introducing real wage rigidity can remedy this problem

Mindestlöhne und Humankapital

Mindestlohn, Niedriglohn, Arbeitsplatz, Beschäftigungseffekt, Schwarzarbeit, Schattenwirtschaft, Ordnungspolitik, Arbeitslosigkeit, Arbeitsmarkt, Reform, Dumping, Arbeitnehmer, Armut, Humankapital, Arbeitsangebot, Sozialstaat, Deutschland