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Unemployment (Fears) and Deflationary Spirals

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Den Haan, WJ 
Riegler, M 
Karner Rendahl, RP 

Abstract

The interaction of incomplete markets and sticky nominal wages is shown to magnify business cycles even though these two features—in isolation—dampen them. During recessions, fears of unemployment stir up precautionary sentiments that induce agents to save more. The additional savings may be used as investments in both a productive asset (equity) and an unproductive nominal liquid asset. The desire to hold the nominal liquid asset puts deflationary pressure on the economy which, provided that nominal wages are sticky, increases labor costs, and reduces firm profits. Lower profits repress the desire to save in equity, which increases (the fear of) unemployment, and so on. This mechanism causes the model to behave differently from its complete markets version and is quantitatively important even if monetary policy counteracts the desire to hold more of the liquid asset by lowering the interest rate. The deflationary pressure yields a mean-reverting reduction in the price level, which implies an increase in expected inflation and a decrease in the expected real interest rate even if the policy rate does not adjust. Thus, our mechanism is different from the typical zero lower bound argument. Due to the deflationary spiral, our model also behaves differently from its incomplete market version without aggregate uncertainty, especially in terms of the impact of unemployment insurance on average employment levels.

Description

Keywords

38 Economics, 3801 Applied Economics, 3802 Econometrics, 3803 Economic Theory, 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth

Journal Title

Journal of the European Economic Association

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1542-4766
1542-4774

Volume Title

Publisher

Oxford University Press
Sponsorship
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Societal Challenges (649396)
Economic and Social Research Council (ES/R009295/1)
Den Haan and Riegler gratefully acknowledge support through the grant “Working Towards a Stable and Sustainable Growth Path,” funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Rendahl and Riegler gratefully acknowledge financial support from the ADEMU project, “A Dynamic Economic and Monetary Union,” funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Program under grant agreement No 649396. Rendahl also gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET). Rendahl is a Research Affiliate at CEPR.