The Cyclical Behavior of Unemployment and Wages under Information Frictions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Morales-Jimenez, Camilo
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20180404
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 301-331
• 关键词: business cycles; equilibrium unemployment; sticky prices; labor-market; expectations; VACANCIES; PRIVATE

摘要

I propose a new mechanism for sluggish wages based on workers' noisy information about the state of the economy. Wages do not respond immediately to a positive aggregate shock because workers do not (yet) have enough information to demand higher wages. The model is robust to two major criticisms of existing theories of sluggish wages and volatile unemployment, namely, that wages are flexible for new hires and the flow opportunity cost of employment (FOCE) is pro-cyclicality. The model generates volatility in the labor market as well as wage and FOCE elasticities with respect to productivity, consistent with the data.