Labor Markets and Business Cycles - (CREI Lectures in Macroeconomics) by Robert Shimer (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Labor Markets and Business Cycles integrates search and matching theory with the neoclassical growth model to better understand labor market outcomes. Robert Shimer shows analytically and quantitatively that rigid wages are important for explaining the volatile behavior of the unemployment rate in business cycles.

The book focuses on the labor wedge that arises when the marginal rate of substitution between consumption and leisure does not equal the marginal product of labor. According to competitive models of the labor market, the labor wedge should be constant and equal to the labor income tax rate. But in U.S. data, the wedge is strongly countercyclical, making it seem as if recessions are periods when workers are dissuaded from working and firms are dissuaded from hiring because of an increase in the labor income tax rate. When job searches are time consuming and wages are flexible, search frictions--the cost of a job search--act like labor adjustment costs, further exacerbating inconsistencies between the competitive model and data. The book shows that wage rigidities can reconcile the search model with the data, providing a quantitatively more accurate depiction of labor markets, consumption, and investment dynamics.

Developing detailed search and matching models, Labor Markets and Business Cycles will be the main reference for those interested in the intersection of labor market dynamics and business cycle research.

From the Back Cover

"This essential book offers an insightful and often provocative analysis of labor market responses to business cycle shocks, and develops new ways of looking at this issue. The careful integration of theory and data, of earlier business cycle theory with search and matching, as well as the critique of wage setting, open up new areas that will inspire researchers for many years to come."--Christopher Pissarides, London School of Economics and Political Science

"Shimer's definitive account of the modern theory of labor market volatility presents many new results and deserves a prominent place on the bookshelf of every macroeconomist and labor economist."--Robert E. Hall, author of Forward-Looking Decision Making

"No other book on labor markets and business cycles treats search and matching models with the same detail. This will be a standard reference for advanced graduate students and researchers who are familiar with modern dynamic programming techniques."--Monika Merz, Bonn University

Review Quotes

"No other book on labor markets and business cycles treats search and matching models with the same detail. This will be a standard reference for advanced graduate students and researchers who are familiar with modern dynamic programming techniques."--Monika Merz, Bonn University

"Shimer's definitive account of the modern theory of labor market volatility presents many new results and deserves a prominent place on the bookshelf of every macroeconomist and labor economist."--Robert E. Hall, author of Forward-Looking Decision Making

"This essential book offers an insightful and often provocative analysis of labor market responses to business cycle shocks, and develops new ways of looking at this issue. The careful integration of theory and data, of earlier business cycle theory with search and matching, as well as the critique of wage setting, open up new areas that will inspire researchers for many years to come."--Christopher Pissarides, London School of Economics and Political Science

About the Author

Robert Shimer is the Alvin H. Baum Professor in Economics and the College at the University of Chicago.