Heterogeneity and Aggregation: Implications for Labor-Market Fluctuations: Comment

• 成果类型: Editorial Material
• 署名作者: Takahashi, Shuhei
• 署名单位: Kyoto University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.4.1446
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 1446-1460
• 关键词: business-cycle; macroeconomy

摘要

Chang and Kim (2007) develop an incomplete asset markets model incorporating discrete labor supply and idiosyncratic labor productivity. Their results resolve long-standing puzzles for business cycle models. Specifically, they produce a low correlation between aggregate hours worked and labor productivity (0.23) and a labor wedge with 76 percent the volatility of output. I show that these results arise from errors in their computational method. I resolve their model using a corrected method and find a strong, positive correlation between hours and productivity (0.80). Fluctuations in the labor wedge decrease to 24 percent of those in output.