Technology-Policy Interaction in Frictional Labor Markets

Technology-Policy Interaction in Frictional Labor Markets∗

Does capital-embodied technological change play an important role in shaping labor market outcomes? To address this question, we develop a model with vintage capital and search-matching frictions where irreversible investment in new vintages of capital creates heterogeneity in productivity among firms, matched as well as vacant. We demonstrate that capital-embodied technological change reduces ...

Vintage Capital in Frictional Labor Markets∗

Does capital-embodied technological change play an important role in shaping labor market outcomes? To address this question, we develop a model with vintage capital and search-matching frictions where irreversible investment in new vintages of capital creates heterogeneity in productivity among both vacant and matched firms. We demonstrate that capital-embodied technological change reduces lab...

Monetary Policy, Labor Markets, and Fiscal Policy

The argument behind the first proposition is very general. The argument behind the second proposition is model dependent. It is exactly true in some of the simpler models we use to think about monetary policy, such as the benchmark New-Keynesian model. In that model, there is, as Jordi Gali and I have christened it, a “divine coincidence”: Stabilizing inflation in the face of either taste or te...

Technology, Skills, and Health Care Labor Markets

Optimal minimum wage policy in competitive labor markets

This paper provides a theoretical analysis of optimal minimum wage policy in a perfectly competitive labor market. We show that a binding minimum wage – while leading to unemployment – is nevertheless desirable if the government values redistribution toward low wage workers and minimum wage induced unemployment hits the lowest surplus workers first. This result remains true in the presence of o...