Unemployment, Capital-Labor Substitution, and Economic Growth

Unemployment, Capital-Labor Substitution, and Economic Growth PDF

Author: Mr.Bob Rowthorn

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1999-03-01

Total Pages: 39

ISBN-13: 1451846304

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This paper discusses the influence of economic growth on the equilibrium unemployment rate (NAIRU). It examines how income distribution and the NAIRU are influenced by capital formation, technical progress, and labor force expansion, and how these factors’ impact depends on the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. The paper distinguishes between the short-run NAIRU when capital stock is exogenous, and the long-run NAIRU when it is endogenous. It also considers how the analysis must be modified to take into account Keynesian ideas concerning the role of aggregate demand. It concludes that unless the capital stock grows in line with labor supply in efficiency units, the short-run NAIRU will increase, reducing the scope for demand stimulation.

Technological Progress, Income Distribution, and Unemployment

Technological Progress, Income Distribution, and Unemployment PDF

Author: Hideyuki Adachi

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-01-04

Total Pages: 90

ISBN-13: 9811337268

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This volume develops original methods of analyzing biased technological progress in the theory and empirics of economic growth and income distribution. Motivated by sharp increases in wage and income inequalities in the world since the beginning of the new century, many macroeconomists have begun to realize the importance of biased technological changes. However, the comprehensive explanations have not yet appeared. This volume analyzes the effects of factor-biased technological progress on growth and income distribution and shows that long-run trends of the capital-income ratio and capital share of income consistent with Piketty’s 2014 empirical results emerge. Incorporating the modified version of induced innovation theory into the standard neoclassical growth model, it also explains the long-run fluctuations of growth and income distribution consistent with the data shown in Piketty. Introducing a wage-setting function, the neoclassical growth model is modified to account for unemployment as well as to examine the dynamics of unemployment and the labor share of income under biased technological progress. Applying a new econometric method to Japanese industrial data, the authors test the key assumptions employed and important results derived in the theoretical part of this book.

Unemployment, Market Structure and Growth

Unemployment, Market Structure and Growth PDF

Author: Rüdiger Wapler

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 3642558933

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In his Ph. D. thesis, Rudiger Wapler analyses the causes of the persistently high unemployment rates especially in continental Europe. Particular emphasis is placed on imperfect labour and product markets on the one hand, and on the numerous links between unemployment, innovations and growth on the other. Hence, Rudiger Wapler provides an important contribution towards a better understanding of both the development of labour markets as well as the dynamics of growth. To aid readers with only little prior knowledge of labour markets, the book presents the most common theories of unemployment: (1) trade-union models in which union bargaining power leads to wages above their market-clearing level, (2) efficiency-wage models in which employers voluntarily pay higher wages in order to motivate or discipline their workers or to reduce the job turnover rate, as well as (3) matching models in which unemployment is caused by the continuous turnover of jobs and workers. In addition, emphasis is placed on the fact that labour needs to be treated as heterogeneous, a fact often neg lected in the literature. Subsequently, these labour-market foundations are integrated with modern theories of innovations and growth, making the ap proach much more relevant and plausible. Without doubt, the generalisations of the models performed by Rudiger Wapler show that there are limits to such formal analysis. Due to the increasing number of interdependencies, it is doubtful whether even more complex models provide additional (usable) insights.

Economic Reforms, Growth and Employment

Economic Reforms, Growth and Employment PDF

Author: Jürgen Weller

Publisher: United Nations Publications

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In the last ten to fifteen years, profound structural reforms have moved Latin America and the Caribbean from closed, state-dominated economies to ones that are more market-oriented and open. Policymakers expected that these changes would speed up growth. This book is part of a multi-year project to determine whether these expectation have been fulfilled. Analysing the impact of the reforms on employment it is argued that expectations were not fulfilled with respect to the operation of the labour markets. The reforms limited the expansion of employment in some sectors, particularly in tradeable goods. They also created a bias in labour demad for better educated workers which exacerbates inequality. It is thus made clear that the region faces major challenges both in increasing the number of jobs and improving job equality.

Revisiting European Unemployment

Revisiting European Unemployment PDF

Author: Olivier J. Blanchard

Publisher: Economic and Social Reseach Institute (ESRI)

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 66

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Abstract: This paper starts from two sets of facts about Continental Europe. The first is the steady increase in unemployment since the early 1970s. The second is the evolution of the capital share, an initial decline in the 1970s, followed by a much larger increase since the mid-1980s. The paper then develops a model of capital accumulation, unemployment and factor prices. Using this model to look at the data, it reaches two main conclusions: The initial increase in unemployment, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, was mostly due to a failure of wages to adjust to the slowdown in underlying factor productivity growth. The initial effect was to decrease profit rates and capital shares. Over time, the reaction of firms was to reduce capital accumulation and move away from labor, leading to a steady increase in unemployment, and a recovery of the capital share. The reason why wage moderation, clearly evident in the data since the mid-1980s, has not led to a decrease in unemployment is that another type of shift has been at work, this time on the labor demand side. At a given wage and a given capital stock firms have steadily decreased employment. The effect of this adverse shift in labor demand has been to lead to both continued high unemployment, and increasing capital shares. What lies behind this shift in labor demand? There are two potential lines of explanation. The first is shifts in the distribution of rents away from workers, for example, the elimination of chronic excess employment by firms. The second explanation points to technological bias: firms in Continental Europe are introducing technologies biased against labor and towards capital.

Education, Unemployment, and Economic Growth

Education, Unemployment, and Economic Growth PDF

Author: Alan L. Sorkin

Publisher: Lexington, Mass. : Lexington Books

Published: 1974

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Economic research monograph on the relationship between education, unemployment and economic growth in the USA - presents an overview of the American labour force force, covers the geographic distribution and population distribution of unemployment, labour market factors, some vocational training programmes to alleviate unemployment among low income groups, etc., and includes short term projections for 1980. References and statistical tables.

The Causes of Unemployment

The Causes of Unemployment PDF

Author: C. A. Greenhalgh

Publisher: Oxford ; New York : Clarendon Press

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

First published in 'The Review of Economic Studies' and 'Oxford Economic Papers', these essays consider the natural rate of unemployment, and attempt to explain its determinants within different frameworks.

Labor Markets and Business Cycles

Labor Markets and Business Cycles PDF

Author: Robert Shimer

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-04-12

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1400835232

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

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.

Employment Protection Deregulation and Labor Shares in Advanced Economies

Employment Protection Deregulation and Labor Shares in Advanced Economies PDF

Author: Gabriele Ciminelli

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2018-08-16

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13: 1484373723

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Labor market deregulation, intended to boost productivity and employment, is one plausible, yet little studied, driver of the decline in labor shares that took place across most advanced economies since the early 1990s. This paper assesses the impact of job protection deregulation in a sample of 26 advanced economies over the period 1970-2015, using a newly constructed dataset of major reforms to employment protection legislation for regular contracts. We apply the local projection method to estimate the dynamic response of the labor share to our reform events at both the country and the country-industry levels. For the latter, we employ a differences-in-differences identification strategy using two identifying assumptions grounded in theory—namely that job protection deregulation should have larger negative effects in industries characterized by (i) a higher “natural” propensity to adjust the workforce, and (ii) a lower elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. We find a statistically significant, economically large and robust negative effect of deregulation on the labor share. In particular, illustrative back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that job protection deregulation may have contributed about 15 percent to the average labor share decline in advanced economies. Together with existing evidence regarding the macroeconomic gains from job protection and other labor market reforms, our results also point to the need for policymakers to address efficiency-equity trade-offs when designing such reforms.