Capital destruction, jobless recoveries, and the discipline device role of unemployment

Marianna Riggi ()

No 871, Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area

Abstract: I consider an economy growing along the balanced growth path that is hit by an adverse shock to its capital accumulation process. The model integrates efficiency wages due to imperfect monitoring of the quality of labour in a search and matching framework with methods of dynamic general equilibrium analysis. I show that, depending on the firms' abilities to assess workers' performance, the discipline device role of unemployment may account for sharp declines in employment and jobless recoveries driven by exceptional increases in the work effort of employees. The model also explains why rigid real wages may prevail in equilibrium: the large movements in unemployment are indeed associated with real wage rigidity, which is generated endogenously by efficiency wages.

Keywords: jobless recoveries; efficiency wages; productivity; capital depreciation; real wage rigidities. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 E32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-lab and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: CAPITAL DESTRUCTION, JOBLESS RECOVERIES, AND THE DISCIPLINE DEVICE ROLE OF UNEMPLOYMENT (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_871_12

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