Abstract: Over the last four decades, the U.S. economy has experienced a few secular trends: declining labor share, increasing profit share, widening income and wealth inequalities, rising household sector leverage and associated financial instability, manifested in an increase in the probability of financial crises. This paper provides a unifying framework for explaining these trends based on a rise in firm market power in both product and labor markets. We develop a general equilibrium model and show that the rise in firm market power over the last few decades can generate all of these secular trends.

Abstract: The 2008 Global Financial Crisis called into question the narrow focus on price stability of inflation targeting regimes. This paper studies the relationship between price stability and financial stability by analyzing alternative monetary policy strategies for an economy that experiences endogenous financial crises due to excessive household sector leverage. We reach three conclusions. First, a central bank can improve both price stability and financial stability by adopting an aggressive inflation targeting regime, in the absence of the zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint on nominal interest rates. Second, in the presence of the ZLB constraint, an aggressive inflation targeting regime may undermine both price stability and financial stability. Third, a leaning against the wind policy can be detrimental to both price stability and financial stability when the credit cycle is driven by countercyclical household sector leverage. In this environment, leaning with credit spreads can be more effective. 

Abstract: Using a representative-household search and matching model with endogenous labor force participation, we study the cyclicality of labor market transition rates between employment, unemployment, and nonparticipation. When interpreted through the lens of the model, the cyclical behavior of transition rates implies that the participation margin is strongly countercyclical: the household's incentive to send the workers to the labor force falls in expansions. We identify two key channels through which the model delivers this result: (i) procyclical values of non-market activities, and (ii) wage rigidity. The smaller the value of the extensive-margin labor supply elasticity is, the stronger the first channel is. Wage rigidity helps because it mitigates increases in the return to market work during expansions. Our estimated model replicates well the behavior of transition rates between the three labor market states and thus the stocks, once both features are in place.

Abstract: Why do more-educated workers experience lower unemployment rates and lower employment volatility? Empirically, these workers have similar job finding rates but much lower and less volatile separation rates than their less-educated peers. We argue that on-the-job training, being complementary to formal education, is the reason for this pattern. Using a search and matching model with endogenous separations, we show that investments in match-specific human capital reduce incentives to separate but leave the job finding rate essentially unaffected. The model generates unemployment dynamics quantitatively consistent with the data. Finally, we provide novel empirical evidence supporting the mechanism studied in the paper.

Abstract: In several developed countries, the ageing process of the population may pose fiscal risks to the PAYG systems of public pensions. This paper studies the determinants of two forms of accessing retirement in Spain, either partial or full retirement. Our goal is to identify if social security legislation influences the choice between these two alternative paths. Using a newly released data set we estimate a multinomial logit duration model including different measures capturing the economic incentives embedded in the social security system. Our results show that social security incentives determine individual retirement decisions. Besides, partial retirement legislation modifies the selection of retirement routes and affects the age of retirement moving it to an earlier date.

Abstract: Some key structural features of the U.S. economy appear to have changed in the recent decades, making the conduct of monetary policy more challenging. In particular, there is high uncertainty about the levels of the natural rate of interest and unemployment as well as about the effect  of economic activity on inflation. At the same time, a prolonged period of below-target inflation has raised concerns about the unanchoring of inflation expectations at levels below the Federal Open Market Committee’s inflation target. In addition, a low natural rate of interest increases the probability of hitting the effective lower bound during a downturn. This paper studies how these factors complicate the attainment of the objectives specified in the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate in the context of a DSGE model, taking into account risk-management considerations. We find that these challenges may warrant pursuing more accommodative policy than would be desirable otherwise. However, such accommodative policy could be associated with concerns about risks to financial markets.

Abstract: Black workers experience a higher unemployment rate, as well as more volatile employment dynamics, than white workers, and the racial unemployment rate gap is largely unexplained by observable characteristics. We develop a New Keynesian model with search and matching frictions in the labor market, endogenous separations, and employer discrimination against Black workers to explain these outcomes. The model is consistent with key features of the aggregate economy and is able to explain key labor market disparities across racial groups. We then use this model to assess the effects of the Federal Reserve’s new monetary policy framework---interest rates respond to shortfalls of employment from its maximum level rather than deviations---on racial inequality in the labor market. We find that shifting from a Deviations interest rate rule to a Shortfalls rule reduces the racial unemployment rate gap and the model-based measures of labor market discrimination but increases the average inflation rate. From a welfare perspective, we find that the Shortfalls approach does not do much to reduce racial inequality in our model economy.

Abstract: The deep deterioration in the labor market during the Great Recession, the subsequent slow recovery, and the missing disinflation are hard to reconcile for standard macroeconomic models. We develop and estimate a New-Keynesian model with financial frictions, search and matching frictions in the labor market, and endogenous intensive and extensive labor supply decisions. We conclude that the estimated combination of the low degree of nominal wage rigidities and high degree of real wage rigidities, together with the small role of pre-match costs relative to post-match costs, are key in successfully forecasting the slow recovery in unemployment and the missing disinflation in the aftermath of the Great Recession. We find that endogenous labor supply data are very informative about the relative degree of nominal and real wage rigidities and the slope of the Phillips curve. We also find that none of the model-based labor market gaps are a sufficient statistic of labor market slack, but all contain relevant information about the state of the economy summarized in a new indicator for labor market slack we put forward.

Abstract: We construct a general equilibrium model in which income inequality results in insufficient aggregate demand, deflation pressure, and excessive credit growth by allocating income to agents featuring low marginal propensity to consume, and if excessive, can lead to an endogenous financial crisis. This economy generates distributions for equilibrium prices and quantities that are highly skewed to the downside due to financial crises and the liquidity trap. Consequently, symmetric monetary policy rules designed to minimize fluctuations around fixed means become inefficient. A simultaneous reduction in inflation volatility and mean unemployment rate is feasible when an asymmetric policy rule is adopted.

Abstract: This paper studies the observed slowdown in U.S. business employment dynamics over recent decades. I propose and quantitatively evaluate the hypothesis that on-the-job human capital accumulation has become increasingly important over time. Indirect empirical support for this hypothesis relates to secular trends of rising educational attainment and changing skill demands due to technical advances. The paper also provides more direct and novel empirical evidence, showing that job training requirements have risen over time. I construct a multi-worker search and matching model with endogenous separations, where training investments act as adjustment costs. The model can explain how the increase in training requirements accounts for the decline in job turnover, the increase in inaction, and the evolution towards a more compressed employment growth distribution, all consistent with the data. Quantitatively, the observed increase in training costs can explain around 30 percent of the decline in the job reallocation rate over the last decades. The key mechanism is that higher job training requirements make firms reluctant to hire and fire workers when economic conditions change, resulting in lower labor turnover.

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to identify driving forces behind the downward trend in unemployment flows since mid-1970s. Population aging and rising educational attainment are found to be two crucial factors for this trend. Empirically, these two demographic characteristics explain most of the total decline in the aggregate unemployment flows from 1976 to 2011. We examine theoretically why and how age and education affect the dynamism of worker flows. Since older and more-educated workers possess more job-specific human capital, the compositional shifts in the labor force induce an increase in the accumulated job-specific human capital. This in turn reduces incentives to destroy jobs and drives the secular trends in labor market fluidity. We show that a relatively stylized search and matching model with endogenous separations, featuring higher amounts of on-the-job training for more-educated workers and skill obsolescence for old unemployed workers, can go a long way in quantitatively accounting for the observed empirical patterns.