A Labor Supply Elasticity Accord ?

Strong differences of opinion about the labor supply elasticity prevail. One camp infers that the aggregate labor supply elasticity is large because big fluctuations in aggregate hours of work occur in response to small fluctuations in workers’ productivity over the business cycle (Prescott 2005). Another camp points to estimates of low labor supply elasticities from microeconometric studies of primary workers (Heckman 1993). Until recently, an insurmountable gulf between these two camps was fortified by a contentious aggregation theory formerly embraced by real business cycle theorists. The repudiation of that aggregation theory in favor of one more genial to microeconomic observations opens possibilities for an accord about the aggregate labor supply elasticity. The new aggregation theory drops features to which empirical microeconomists