Arbeitspapier

Are flexible working hours helpful in stabilizing unemployment?

In this paper we challenge the conventional view that increasing working time exibility limits the amplitude of unemployment fluctuations. We start by showing that hours per worker in European countries are much less procyclical than in the US, and in some economies even co-move negatively with output. This is confirmed by the results from a structural VAR model for the euro area, in which working hours increase after a contractionary monetary shock, exacerbating the upward pressure on unemployment. To understand these counterintuitive results, we develop a structural search and matching macroeconomic model with endogenous job separation. We show that this feature is key to generate countercyclical adjustments in working hours. When we augment the model with frictions in working hours adjustment and estimate it using euro area time series, we find that increasing flexibility of working time amplifies cyclical movements in unemployment.

ISBN
978-952-323-301-0
Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers ; No. 24/2019

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
Business Fluctuations; Cycles
Time Allocation and Labor Supply
Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Kolasa, Marcin
Rubaszek, Michał
Walerych, Małgorzata
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Bank of Finland
(wo)
Helsinki
(wann)
2019

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:43 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Kolasa, Marcin
  • Rubaszek, Michał
  • Walerych, Małgorzata
  • Bank of Finland

Entstanden

  • 2019

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