Heterogeneity in labor mobility and unemployment flows across countries
Jonathan Créchet
European Economic Review, 2023, vol. 155, issue C
Abstract:
Empirical studies of labor-market flows suggest cross-country differences in long-run aggregate unemployment inflows and outflows of a strikingly large magnitude. The canonical search-and-matching framework of Mortensen and Pissarides (1994, 1999b; the MP model) features small elasticities of steady-state unemployment flows with respect to firing costs, at odds with the idea that labor-market institutions such as employment protection policies are a primary driver of this variation. This paper shows that introducing permanent match-quality heterogeneity in the standard MP model substantially amplifies these elasticities. It then develops a quantitative search model with worker and job heterogeneity consistent with U.S. worker-flow data. This model implies that employment protection differences plausibly account for most of the long-run unemployment-flow variation across high-income countries. In sharp contrast, shutting down heterogeneity implies that large changes in matching efficiency are required to explain the same cross-country variation.
Keywords: Unemployment; Worker flows; Search frictions; Heterogeneity; Labor-market institutions; Firing costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:155:y:2023:i:c:s0014292123000703
DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104441
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