Endogenous Labor Market Participation and the Business Cycle

Christian Haefke () and Michael Reiter

No 2029, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Existing models of equilibrium unemployment with endogenous labor market participation are complex, generate procyclical unemployment rates and cannot match unemployment variability relative to GDP. We embed endogenous participation in a simple, tractable job market matching model, show analytically how variations in the participation rate are driven by the cross-sectional density of home productivity near the participation threshold, and how this density translates into an extensive-margin labor supply elasticity. A calibration of the model to macro data not only matches employment and participation variabilities but also generates strongly countercyclical unemployment rates. With some wage rigidity the model also matches unemployment variations well. Furthermore, the labor supply elasticity implied by our calibration is consistent with microeconometric evidence for the US.

Keywords: matching models; labor market participation; labor supply elasticity; time aggregation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 E32 J21 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2006-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-lab and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Endogenous Labor Market Participation and the Business Cycle (2015)
Working Paper: Endogenous Labor Market Participation and the Business Cycle (2006)
Working Paper: Endogenous labor market participation and the business cycle (2006)
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