 Labor market frictions, investment and capital flowsClemens C. Struck Economics Letters, 2018, vol. 163, issue C, 27-31 Abstract: The standard neoclassical model predicts that countries with higher productivity growth rates experience sharp increases in investment that are followed by rapid declines. This monotonic investment response contrasts with the empirical evidence that suggests a rather hump-shaped investment behavior. In this paper, I present a two-country general equilibrium model that generates hump-shaped investment responses from labor market frictions. In the model, I decompose investment into tradable and non-tradable components and show that an increase in the growth rate of a country results in scarcities of the non-tradable components which raise the relative price of investment goods. These scarcities occur because labor is unable to reallocate quickly between sectors within economies. This mechanism has two main implications. First, the induced movement in relative prices equates cross-country returns to capital and thus greatly reduces initial investment. Second, domestic saving now plays a more important role in financing investment, inducing a co-movement between these variables. Keywords: Investment prices; Capital flows; Current account; Global imbalances; Capital returns; Labor market frictions; Trade frictions (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:163:y:2018:i:c:p:27-31 DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2017.11.021 Access Statistics for this article Economics Letters is currently edited by Economics Letters Editorial Office More articles in Economics Letters from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.