Volume 3, Issue 1

This paper evaluates complementarities of labor market institutions and the business cycle in the context of a stochastic dynamic general equilibrium model economy. Matching between workers and vacancies with endogenous time spent in search, Nash-bargained wages, payroll taxation, and differential support for unemployed labor in search and leisure are central aspects of the model. For plausible regions of the policy and institutional parameter space, the model exhibits more persistence than standard real business cycle models and can exhibit indeterminacy of rational expectations paths without increasing returns in production. Furthermore, labor market institutions act in a complementary fashion in generating these effects.

We introduce technology choice into a model of monopolistic competition and analyze the structural effects of changes in market size. A larger market leads to the adoption of a large-scale technology. If a technology switch occurs, the number of firms decreases, and a rationalizing effect arises: individual and aggregate output increases; prices fall. This need not benefit consumers since a technology switch is associated with a decrease in product variety.

In a world with risk-neutral agents in which accidents occur with a positive probability, liability rules will only induce efficient behaviour if these rules impose the full (marginal) costs of an action on the parties. However, institutional restrictions or bilateral activity choices can prevent the full internalization of costs. A mechanism is proposed which guarantees an efficient outcome: monetary fines which are not related to the occurrence of an accident. Such a mechanism requires individuals to violate the standard of care in order to trigger the fine payments. Hence, efficiency requires an excessive standard.

This paper studies the macroeconomic impact of private and public intergenerational transfers in the presence of endogenous growth. It focuses on two-sided altruism implying that individuals have both a motive to make gifts to their parents and a motive to leave bequests to their children. The growth effects of social security depend on whether children are making gifts to their parents or parents are leaving bequests to their children. Which of the transfers is operative, in turn, depends on the size of social security benefits. Social security is legislated endogenously. The introduction of a social security program which definitely reduces per capita income growth and harms future generations is contemplated by altruistic individuals even if non-altruistic individuals disapprove it.

The German Pension Act of 1992 raises the mandatory retirement age while the Act of 1999 adjusts pension benefits to demographic changes. To examine welfare and macroeconomic effects of these reform schemes, we have carried out a dynamic CGE study. The model used is an enlarged version of the Auerbach- Kotlikoff model with endogenous retirement decisions, unemployment, age-dependent rates of unemployment, health, and long-term care insurance. The simulation is performed in two stages: first, the effects of the population decline in Germany are computed ignoring the reforms and, second, the effects of the reform schemes are examined and compared with the benchmark case. The results suggest that the Act of 1992 implies welfare gains while suspending the Act of 1999 induces welfare losses.