Modern economists have built models of the labor market, which isolate the market’s key drivers and describe the way these interact to produce particular levels of unemployment. One of the most popular models used by macroeconomists today is the search-matching model of equilibrium unemployment. We explain this model, and show how it can be applied to understand the way various policies, such as unemployment benefits, taxes, or technological changes, can affect the unemployment rate.Unemployment ; Labor market

Guillaume Rocheteau

English

Research Papers in Economics

October 15, 2006
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Understanding Unemployment 
by Guillaume Rocheteau
ISSN 0428-1276
Modern economists have built models
of the labor market, which isolate the
market’s key drivers and describe 
the way these interact to produce 
particular levels of unemployment.
One of the most popular models used
by macroeconomists today is the
search-matching model of equilibrium
unemployment. We explain this model,
and show how it can be applied to
understand the way various policies,
such as unemployment benefits, taxes,
or technological changes, can affect the
unemployment rate.
Adisturbing feature of the labor mar-
ket is its seeming inability to clear. At
each instant in time, there are both
workers without jobs and jobs without
workers. How can it be that productive
resources are left unemployed in a well-
functioning market economy?
Economists attribute the failure of the
labor market to instantly allocate work-
ers to jobs to various “frictions.” These
frictions arise because labor, unlike gold
or oil, is not a homogenous commodity.
The services provided by a plumber are
different from those provided by a
lawyer—and even lawyers differ in the
services they offer; some specialize in
constitutional law, others in private law.
To match jobs and workers is far from a
trivial problem. The heterogeneity of
labor services also makes it hard for
employers to distinguish productive
from unproductive workers. And to
complicate things even more, the mere
process of moving labor services from
one job to another is not costless.
Over the past 25 years, economists have
developed a theory of the labor market
that takes into account the heterogeneity
of labor services and that describes the
matching process of workers and firms.
The theory, sometimes called the search-
matching theory of unemployment, is the
description that most economists have in
the back of their mind when thinking
about the labor market. In this Commen-
tary, we review this theory and show
how it can be applied to address several
issues related to unemployment.
■ Three Building Blocks for a
Theory of Unemployment 
The search model of unemployment
contains three elements. Each element
characterizes a different aspect of the
labor market, and the three elements
together determine the behavior of the
overall labor market. The first element
describes how wages are set. The second
determines the number of vacancies that
firms decide to open, and the third
describes the process through which
unemployed workers and vacancies are
brought together, that is, the process of
creating jobs. 
Setting Wages 
Not all labor markets work the same, but
in many, wages are determined through a
bargaining process between workers and
their employers. The outcome of the bar-
gaining process depends on two things:
the bargaining power of each party and
the outside options of each. The party
with the most bargaining power—the
worker or the firm—is the one that can
extract a larger fraction of the surplus
that stems from their relationship. The
outside options for both workers and
firms depend on the income of each if
they stay unmatched as well as their
ability to locate alternative partners if 
the negotiation fails.
Outside options are affected by the
“imbalances” of the labor market—the
number of vacancies and the number of
unemployed workers. Wages respond to
changes in outside options as follows. If
the number of vacancies per unemployed
worker (a measure of the scarcity of
workers often referred to as labor market
tightness) is large, then workers’outside
options are good and they can ask for a
high wage. Firms are willing to pay this
high wage to avoid having to look for
another worker and incurring high
recruiting costs. But if vacancies are
scarce relative to unemployed workers,
then workers’outside options are poor,
and they are willing to accept low wages
to avoid a long spell of unemployment.
In cases where wages are formed differ-
ently than by bargaining between work-
ers and firms, most descriptions of the
wage-setting process would still predict
that wages tend to increase as the num-
ber of vacancies (per unemployed
worker) increases. The relationship
between the wage and the number of
vacancies is referred to as the wage-set-
ting curve and is shown in figure 1. Our
version of the wage-setting curve slopes
upward: As the number of vacancies
increases, workers get higher wages.
The wage-setting curve shifts to the left
or the right when fundamentals of the
economy change. For instance, the curve
moves to the right—meaning that wages
increase—as workers’productivity
increases, as workers enjoy more bar-
gaining power, or as they receive more
generous unemployment benefits.Opening Job Vacancies
Once we know how the market wage is
determined, we can find the number of
workers that firms are willing to hire, or
equivalently, the number of vacancies
they want to open. If it were costless to
find a suitable worker and if it could be
done instantaneously, firms would keep
hiring workers as long as each new
worker’s productivity exceeded the mar-
ket wage. But hiring a worker is neither
costless nor instantaneous. The firm
needs to post and advertise a vacancy,
evaluate candidates, and so on. As a
consequence of these labor market fric-
tions, a firm will want to open a position
only if the sum of profits it makes by
hiring a worker compensates it for the
various recruiting expenses it incurs to
find the worker. This condition is
referred to as the vacancy-supply condi-
tion. It says that the number of vacan-
cies opened in a labor market is deter-
mined as a function of the market wage
and recruiting costs.
The vacancy-supply condition is repre-
sented in figure 1. The curve slopes
downward, meaning that the number of
vacancies falls as the wage increases.
This can be understood intuitively by
considering that when the wage is low,
each worker generates high profits, and
firms are willing to open a large number
of vacancies. Of course, as the number
of vacancies increases, it becomes
harder for firms to find workers. As a
consequence, hiring and recruiting costs
increase until the incentives to open new
vacancies are exhausted.
Again, changes in the fundamentals of
the labor market can affect the position
of the vacancy-supply curve. The
vacancy-supply curve moves upward
(which means that firms want to hire
more workers and therefore open a larger
number of vacancies) as workers become
more productive, as the cost of advertis-
ing vacancies falls, and as the process of
finding suitable workers becomes more
efficient.
Matching Workers and Jobs
The wage-setting curve and the vacancy-
supply curve allow us to determine the
wage and the number of vacancies
opened by firms. This information, how-
ever, is insufficient to determine the
unemployment rate. We need to know
how the number of vacancies affects
unemployment. For this, we need to
understand how vacancies and unem-
ployed workers are matched to create
filled jobs.
As outlined earlier, the mechanism
through which workers and firms are
matched is imperfect and time consum-
ing. Formally, this matching process is
described as a “productive” process.
There is an output: the number of
matches between workers and firms, or
equivalently, the number of jobs created.
There are two inputs: the number of
unemployed workers and the number of
vacancies. The relationship between the
stock of unemployed workers and the
stock of vacancies to the number of jobs
created, the so-called matching function,
has been estimated for the U.S. economy 
(as well as for other economies). It has
the following properties. The number of
jobs created is larger when there are
more unemployed workers and vacan-
cies. This property can be understood
intuitively when you consider that a
productive process produces more output
if it has more inputs. If one doubles the
number of vacancies and the number of
unemployed workers, the number of jobs
created should be doubled as well. (The
matching function is said to have con-
stant returns to scale.) However, the rate
at which an unemployed worker finds a
job decreases as the pool of unemployed
workers expands. Economists say that
workers exert a “congestion effect” on
each other when they are searching for a
job. The matching function is illustrated
in figure 2. The flow of job creations
feeds the stock of employed workers and
filled jobs. The stock of unemployed
workers is replenished by the flow of
job destructions.
If the economy were not subject to 
various shocks, it would end up in a
steady state, where the number of jobs
created would equal the number of jobs
destroyed, and the stock of unemployed
workers would remain unchanged. In
this steady state, the unemployment rate
would be low if the flow of job creations
were large relative to job destructions,
which would occur when the number of
vacancies was large. But if there were
few vacancies, then the flow of job 
creations would be small, and the unem-
ployment rate would be high. The nega-
tive relationship between vacancies and
unemployment (at the steady state) is
represented in the right panel of figure 1,
and it is called the Beveridge curve. 
The Beveridge curve is an important tool
for economists who want to assess the
extent of search-matching frictions in the
labor market. An upward shift of the
Beveridge curve is symptomatic of a
more severe mismatch problem between
workers and jobs. 
FIGURE  2 JOB FLOWS
Vacancies Vacancies
Wage
setting
Vacancy
supply
Beveridge
curve
Unemployment rate Wage W*
V*
U*
Unemployed 
workers
Vacancies
Employed workers
and 
filled jobs
Matching
Job destructions
Job destructions
Job creations
FIGURE  1 SEARCH FRICTIONS 
AND UNEMPLOYMENTPutting the Three Building Blocks
Together
Obviously, wages, vacancies, and the
unemployment rate cannot be explained
independently. One cannot understand
wages without knowing the tightness of
the labor market; the number of vacan-
cies depends on the market wage; and
the unemployment rate depends on the
number of vacancies opened by firms.
We have to put the three pieces of the
puzzle together. 
Since the vacancy-supply curve slopes
up, and the wage-setting curve slopes
down, there is a unique intersection
between the two curves. The point of
intersection determines the going mar-
ket wage and the number of vacancies
(that is, the vacancy-unemployment
ratio. See the left panel of figure 1). 
The market wage is denoted W* in 
figure 1, and the vacancy-unemploy-
ment ratio is denoted V*. Once we
know the vacancy-unemployment ratio,
the unemployment rate is obtained from
the Beveridge curve (see the right panel
of figure 1.) The equilibrium unemploy-
ment rate is denoted U* in figure 1.
We can then use this simple theory to
determine how the equilibrium unem-
ployment rate is affected when eco-
nomic fundamentals, such as productiv-
ity, workers’bargaining power,
recruiting costs, and matching frictions,
change or when policies, such as unem-
ployment benefits or taxes, are altered. 
■ The Determinants of the 
Unemployment Rate
Generous unemployment benefits are
often blamed for higher unemployment
rates in Europe relative to the United
States. How valid is this claim? The
search-matching theory can help us
evaluate it. According to the theory,
higher unemployment benefits shift
the wage-setting curve to the right:
Workers are in a better position 
when unemployed, which allows
them to negotiate a higher wage. As
a consequence, firms have a lower
incentive to open vacancies because
they would make lower profits off 
of them. 
More generous benefits can also slow
down the time it takes to match work-
ers and firms. First, unemployed
workers are in less of a hurry to find a
job and, therefore, they search with a
lower intensity. Second, they are
more choosy in terms of the type of
job they will accept. Because of these
effects, the Beveridge curve shifts
upward, and for a given vacancy-
unemployment ratio, the unemploy-
ment rate increases. To summarize,
more generous benefits lead to higher
wages, fewer vacancies, and slower
matching. No surprise, the unem-
ployment rate increases.
More powerful European unions have
also been blamed for transatlantic
differences in unemployment rates.
Do unions deserve such blame? The
search-matching theory says that the
higher bargaining power enjoyed by
unions in some European countries
allows workers to extract a larger
share of the surplus generated by 
a job. Because the market wage is
higher, firms have a smaller incentive
to open vacancies. Graphically, the
wage-setting curve shifts to the right,
which raises wages but reduces the
supply of vacancies. Unemployment
increases.
Some economists have argued that 
the main reason unemployment rates
differ across developed countries
stems from different tax policies. 
For instance, payroll taxes tend to be
higher in Europe. According to the
search-matching theory, taxes reduce
firms’incentives to open vacancies
and workers’incentives to search for
jobs because taxes reduce the (net)
surplus from a filled job. Graphically,
a payroll tax moves the vacancy- 
supply curve downward and the 
wage-setting curve to the left. The
vacancy-unemployment ratio and
(net) wages are lower, while unem-
ployment is higher.
Countries with similar policies can
have different unemployment rates
because they use different technologies
to match workers and firms. The 
Internet or employment agencies, for
example, might improve the matching
process, and firms in countries where
they are available will have higher
incentives to open vacancies. Graphi-
cally, the vacancy-supply curve moves
upward. The vacancy-unemployment
ratio and wages increase. In addition,
the Beveridge curve shifts downward
because the matching process is more
efficient. Therefore, the equilibrium
unemployment rate is lower in coun-
tries with lower matching frictions.
■ Why Do Unemployment 
Rates Vary with Business 
Cycles? 
Unemployment rates are lower in
booms and higher in recessions. The
search theory of unemployment helps
makes it clear why this should be the
case. Business cycle fluctuations are
commonly thought to be initiated by
productivity shocks, and changes in
labor productivity over the business
cycle will cause predictable conse-
quences in the labor market that are 
captured by the theory. What happens
when workers become more productive?
Because they produce more output, they
can ask for a higher wage. The wage-
setting curve moves to the right. Firms
also make higher profits when workers
are more productive (assuming that
workers cannot appropriate the full
increase in productivity), so the
vacancy-supply curve moves upward. 
Over the business cycle, the vacancy
rate will cycle above and below the
Beveridge curve (see figure 3). A posi-
tive productivity shock raises the
vacancy-unemployment ratio so that
the economy is located above the Bev-
eridge curve. Then, the unemployment
rate decreases over time and the econ-
omy returns to the Beveridge curve.
Similarly, following a negative shock,
the vacancy-unemployment ratio falls
and the economy falls below the Bev-
eridge curve. Then, the unemployment
rate increases gradually to bring the
economy back to a steady state.
The Beveridge curve can also shift up
and down during the business cycle.
Indeed, recessions are often described
as intense periods of reallocations of
workers and jobs. One explanation for
Vacancies Vacancies
Wage
setting
Vacancy
supply
Beveridge
curve
Unemployment rate Wage
Boom
Recession
FIGURE  3 FLUCTUATIONS OF THE
UNEMPLOYMENT RATEFederal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Research Department
P.O. Box 6387
Cleveland, OH 44101
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Guillaume Rocheteau is an economist at the
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
The views expressed here are those of the
author and not necessarily those of the Federal
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this phenomenon is that the reallocation
of jobs is less costly during recession
because the opportunity cost of closing
jobs and plants (the foregone output,
worker retraining, the retooling of
plants…) is smaller than it is during
booms.
■ Recommended Readings
Dale Mortensen, and Christopher Pis-
sarides. 1999. “New Developments in
Models of Search in the Labor Market,”
Chapter 39 in Orley Ashenfelter and
David Card (eds.) Handbook of Labor
Economics, vol. 3B, Amsterdam: 
North-Holland. 
Christopher Pissarides. 2000. Equilib-
rium Unemployment, 2nd edition, 
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 

Understanding unemployment

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