Optimal Labor-Market Policy in Recessions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jung, Philip; Kuester, Keith
• 署名单位: Dortmund University of Technology; University of Bonn
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20130028
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 124-156
• 关键词: optimal unemployment-insurance; cyclical behavior; equilibrium unemployment; job destruction; Wage stickiness; COSTS; EMPLOYMENT; VACANCIES; fluctuations; turnover

摘要

Within a search and matching model with risk-averse workers, endogenous hiring and separation, and unobservable search effort, we show how to decentralize the constrained-efficient allocation by a combination of a production tax and three labor-market policy instruments: vacancy subsidies, layoff taxes, and unemployment benefits. We derive analytical expressions for the optimal mix of these over the business cycle. Calibrating the model to the US economy under the assumption that wages are rigid, we find that hiring subsidies and layoff taxes should rise considerably and persistently in recessions. The optimal variation in unemployment benefits, in contrast, is quantitatively small and short-lived.