Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp8453.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor Market Reforms and Current Account Imbalances: Beggar-Thy-Neighbor Policies in a Currency Union?

Author

Listed:
  • Baas, Timo

    (University of Duisburg-Essen)

  • Belke, Ansgar H.

    (University of Duisburg-Essen)

Abstract
Member countries of the European Monetary Union (EMU) initiated wide-ranging labor market reforms in the last decade. This process is ongoing as countries that are faced with serious labor market imbalances perceive reforms as the fastest way to restore competitiveness within a currency union. This fosters fears among observers about a beggar-thy-neighbor policy that leaves non-reforming countries with a loss in competitiveness and an increase in foreign debt. Using a two-country, two-sector search and matching DSGE model, we analyze the impact of labor market reforms on the transmission of macroeconomic shocks in both, non-reforming and reforming countries. By analyzing the impact of reforms on foreign debt, we contribute to the debate on whether labor market reforms increase or reduce current account imbalances.

Suggested Citation

  • Baas, Timo & Belke, Ansgar H., 2014. "Labor Market Reforms and Current Account Imbalances: Beggar-Thy-Neighbor Policies in a Currency Union?," IZA Discussion Papers 8453, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8453
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp8453.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2007. "The Unsustainable US Current Account Position Revisited," NBER Chapters, in: G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment, pages 339-376, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Carone, Giuseppe & Stovicek, Klara & Pierini, Fabiana & Sail, Etienne, 2009. "Recent reforms of the tax and benefit systems in the framework of flexicurity," MPRA Paper 24862, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. repec:wop:calsdi:97-23 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Christopher A. Pissarides & Barbara Petrongolo, 2001. "Looking into the Black Box: A Survey of the Matching Function," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 390-431, June.
    5. Blanchard, Olivier & Wolfers, Justin, 2000. "The Role of Shocks and Institutions in the Rise of European Unemployment: The Aggregate Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 1-33, March.
    6. Obstfeld, Maurice & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1995. "The intertemporal approach to the current account," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 34, pages 1731-1799, Elsevier.
    7. Richard H. Clarida, 2007. "G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number clar06-2.
    8. Andrea Ferrero & Mark Gertler & Lars E. O. Svensson, 2007. "Current Account Dynamics and Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: International Dimensions of Monetary Policy, pages 199-244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Edward P. Lazear, 1990. "Job Security Provisions and Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 699-726.
    10. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    11. Dominick Salvatore, 1998. "Europe’s Structural and Competitiveness Problems and the Euro," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 189-205, March.
    12. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393, Elsevier.
    13. Antonella Trigari, 2009. "Equilibrium Unemployment, Job Flows, and Inflation Dynamics," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(1), pages 1-33, February.
    14. Krause, Michael U. & Uhlig, Harald, 2012. "Transitions in the German labor market: Structure and crisis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 64-79.
    15. Krause, Michael U. & Lubik, Thomas A., 2007. "The (ir)relevance of real wage rigidity in the New Keynesian model with search frictions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 706-727, April.
    16. Garey Ramey & Wouter J. den Haan & Joel Watson, 2000. "Job Destruction and Propagation of Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 482-498, June.
    17. Giuseppe Bertola & Anna Lo Prete, 2015. "Reforms, Finance, and Current Accounts," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 469-488, August.
    18. Carl E. Walsh, 2005. "Labor Market Search, Sticky Prices, and Interest Rate Policies," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(4), pages 829-849, October.
    19. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    20. Bean, Charles R, 1994. "European Unemployment: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(2), pages 573-619, June.
    21. Zanetti, Francesco, 2011. "Labor market institutions and aggregate fluctuations in a search and matching model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 644-658, June.
    22. Merz, Monika, 1995. "Search in the labor market and the real business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 269-300, November.
    23. Blanchard, Olivier J. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1987. "Hysteresis in unemployment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-2), pages 288-295.
    24. Gabriel Felbermayr & Mario Larch & Wolfgang Lechthaler, 2012. "Labour market reforms in a globalised world," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 47(5), pages 307-312, September.
    25. Krause-Pilatus, Annabelle & Rinne, Ulf & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2014. "How Far Away Is a Single European Labor Market?," IZA Discussion Papers 8383, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    26. Burgess, Simon & Turon, Hélène, 2010. "Worker flows, job flows and unemployment in a matching model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 393-408, April.
    27. Fahr René & Sunde Uwe, 2009. "Did the Hartz Reforms Speed-Up the Matching Process? A Macro- Evaluation Using Empirical Matching Functions," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 284-316, August.
    28. C. Fred Bergsten, 2005. "The United States and the World Economy: Foreign Economic Policy for the Next Decade," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 3802, April.
    29. Mortensen, Dale & Pissarides, Christopher, 2011. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    30. repec:hhs:iuiwop:466 is not listed on IDEAS
    31. repec:bla:germec:v:10:y:2009:i::p:284-316 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    33. Dreze, Jacques H. & Malinvaud, Edmond, 1994. "Growth and employment: The scope of a European initiative," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 489-504, April.
    34. Hobijn, Bart & Sahin, Aysegül, 2009. "Job-finding and separation rates in the OECD," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 107-111, September.
    35. Ruo Chen & Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti & Thierry Tressel, 2013. "External imbalances in the eurozone [Trade effects of the euro: evidence from sectoral data]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 28(73), pages 101-142.
    36. E. Paul Durrenberger, 2012. "Labour," Chapters, in: James G. Carrier (ed.), A Handbook of Economic Anthropology, Second Edition, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    37. Assar Lindbeck, 1996. "The West European employment problem," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 132(4), pages 609-637, December.
    38. Mike Kennedy & Torsten Sløk, 2005. "Structural Policy Reforms and External Imbalances," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 415, OECD Publishing.
    39. Andolfatto, David, 1996. "Business Cycles and Labor-Market Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 112-132, March.
    40. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Labor market reforms and current account imbalances: Beggar-thy-neighbor policies in a currency union?
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2015-07-17 18:48:53

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Milone, Luciano Marcello, 2020. "Structural Reforms in the European Union: What is New after the Crisis?," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 73(3), pages 351-372.
    2. Baas, Timo & Belke, Ansgar, 2017. "Oil price shocks, monetary policy and current account imbalances within a currency union," CEPS Papers 13334, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    3. Bursian, Dirk & Goldbach, Stefan & Jochem, Axel & Nagengast, Arne & Schön, Matthias & Stähler, Nikolai & Vetlov, Igor, 2020. "A model-based analysis of the German current account surplus," Technical Papers 03/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Timo Baas & Ansgar Belke, 2014. "Labor Market Reforms and Current Account Imbalances - Beggar-thy-Neighbor Policies in a Currency Union?," Ruhr Economic Papers 0505, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    2. repec:zbw:rwirep:0505 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Baas, Timo & Belke, Ansgar, 2017. "Oil price shocks, monetary policy and current account imbalances within a currency union," GLO Discussion Paper Series 160, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. Zanetti, Francesco, 2011. "Labor market institutions and aggregate fluctuations in a search and matching model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 644-658, June.
    5. Ahrens, Steffen & Wesselbaum, Dennis, 2009. "On the introduction of firing costs," Kiel Working Papers 1559, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    6. Bank of England, 2008. "Labor Market Institutions and Aggregate Fluctuations in a Search and Matching Model," 2008 Meeting Papers 370, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Antonella Trigari, 2006. "The Role of Search Frictions and Bargaining for Inflation Dynamics," Working Papers 304, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    8. Lochner Benjamin, 2024. "Employment Protection in Dual Labor Markets: Any Amplification of Macroeconomic Shocks?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 24(1), pages 249-304, January.
    9. Cook, David & Xu, Juanyi, 2015. "Eurosclerosis and international business cycles," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 54-67.
    10. Federico Di Pace & Matthias Hertweck, 2019. "Labor Market Frictions, Monetary Policy, and Durable Goods," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 274-304, April.
    11. Casares, Miguel, 2013. "On firm-level, industry-level, and aggregate employment fluctuations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 2963-2978.
    12. Nils M. Gornemann & Keith Kuester & Makoto Nakajima, 2012. "Monetary policy with heterogeneous agents," Working Papers 12-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    13. Christoffel, Kai & Costain, James & de Walque, Gregory & Kuester, Keith & Linzert, Tobias & Millard, Stephen & Pierrard, Olivier, 2009. "Inflation dynamics with labour market matching: assessing alternative specifications," Bank of England working papers 375, Bank of England.
    14. Imen Ben Mohamed & Marine Salès, 2015. "Credit imperfections, labor market frictions and unemployment: a DSGE approach," Working Papers hal-01082491, HAL.
    15. Imen Ben Mohamed & Marine Salès, 2015. "Credit imperfections, labor market frictions and unemployment: a DSGE approach," Working Papers hal-01082471, HAL.
    16. Givens, Gregory E., 2011. "Unemployment insurance in a sticky-price model with worker moral hazard," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 1192-1214, August.
    17. Cacciatore, Matteo & Fiori, Giuseppe & Ghironi, Fabio, 2016. "Market deregulation and optimal monetary policy in a monetary union," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 120-137.
    18. Poilly, Céline & Wesselbaum, Dennis, 2014. "Evaluating labor market reforms: A normative analysis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 156-170.
    19. Thomas, Carlos & Zanetti, Francesco, 2009. "Labor market reform and price stability: An application to the Euro Area," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 885-899, September.
    20. Gábor Pintér, 2019. "House Prices and Job Losses," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(618), pages 991-1013.
    21. Reicher, Christopher Phillip, 2009. "What can a New Keynesian labor matching model match?," Kiel Working Papers 1496, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    current account deficit; labor market reforms; DSGE models; search and matching labor market;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8453. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.