Technology - Policy interaction in frictional labour-markets

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hornstein, Andreas; Krusell, Per; Violante, Giovanni L.
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Richmond; University of Rochester; National Bureau of Economic Research; New York University
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-937X.2007.00449.x
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 1089-1124
• 关键词: unemployment; GROWTH

摘要

Does capital-embodied technological change play an important role in shaping labour-market outcomes? To address this question, we develop a model with vintage capital and search-matching frictions where irreversible investment in new vintages of capital creates heterogeneity in productivity among firms, matched as well as vacant. We demonstrate that capital-embodied technological change reduces labour demand and raises equilibrium unemployment and unemployment durations. In addition, the presence of labour-market regulations (unemployment benefits, payroll taxes, and firing costs) exacerbates these effects. Thus, the model is qualitatively consistent with some key features of the European labour-market experience relative to that of the U.S.: it features a sharper rise in unemployment and a sharper fall in the vacancy rate and the labour share. A calibrated version of our model suggests that this technology-policy interaction could explain a sizeable fraction of the observed differences between the U.S. and Europe.