Search Frictions: Matching Aggregate and Establishment Observations

By Russell Cooper, John Haltiwanger, and Jonathan L. Willis
December 2006; Last Revised June 2007
RWP 06-14
Research Division
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City


Abstract

     We estimate a search model to match hours, employment, vacancies and unemployment at the micro and macro levels. We establish a set of facts concerning the variability of unemployment and vacancies in the aggregate and the distribution of net employment growth and the comovement of hours and employment growth at the establishment level. A search model with non-convex costs of posting vacancies, establishment-level profitability shocks and a contracting framework to set hours provides a structure to understand these observations. The estimated model is able to capture both the aggregate and establishment-level facts.
 

Keywords: Sticky information, state dependent pricing

JEL classification: D8, E3, L16


Back to top       RWP home