Macroeconomic Effects of Labor and Industrial Policies

这项研究继续了研究者对劳工和产业政策的宏观经济影响的研究。先前的研究开发了一个多部门动态一般均衡内部/外部模型，并使用该模型定量评估了20世纪30年代罗斯福总统的卡特尔化和劳动力市场政策对宏观经济的影响。我之前研究的主要发现是，这些新政政策是大萧条持续到第二次世界大战的关键因素。这项新研究在两个重要方面拓宽和扩展了这项工作，从而解决了之前工作中发现的一些关键难题。首先，它发展了一个动态的一般均衡内部/外部模型，该模型具有“hold-up”：工人从资本那里攫取租金的能力。这是对先前工作中从hold中抽象出来的模型的实质性理论创新。从理论上讲，该模型将早期的动态通用电气内部/外部模型与拖延摩擦相结合，因为工人可以在公司和工人讨价还价之前从公司的投资中获得租金。该项目展示了平衡是如何表征的，以及如何计算平衡，即使有行业特定资本产生的额外复杂性。这一模型对政府政策允许劳动力持有资本的历史事件具有实质性的定量含义。该模型用于研究《国家劳动关系法》（National Labor Relations Act， NLRA）的宏观经济效应，该法案赋予了劳工支撑企业的重要能力。该模型的说明抓住了新政政策的一些关键方面。这个停滞的模型有助于解决我早期工作中强调的两个关键难题：(1)NLRA通过后经济的进一步恶化；(2)投资水平异常低。hold-up模型预测，在NLRA被采用后，产出和就业将进一步下降，实际工资将进一步上涨，这与数据一致。该模型所预测的投资水平也比之前模型所预测的低得多，而且没有任何阻碍，因此使理论更接近于数据。这一发现表明，“抢夺租金”是新政期间保持低投资的关键因素。该提案还概述了这一模式在欧洲的应用。其次，通过研究影响劳动力供给的失业保险政策，拓宽了过去的工作。本文建立了一个动态一般均衡模型来研究历史上一些经济萧条对宏观经济的影响，在这些萧条中，一些国家采用了非常慷慨的失业救济制度。这项研究表明，英国的失业保险制度——连同大规模的、特定行业的负面冲击——是导致萧条的一个关键因素。新的研究开发了一个完整的模型来定量评估失业救济金在两次世界大战之间的英国和其他历史时期的宏观经济影响。这项研究与分析两次世界大战之间英国大萧条的大量现有文献有很大不同。它充分利用了动态一般均衡理论，而且它并不只关注用户界面。事实上，该研究讨论了为何失业不可能是全部原因，因为二战后的就业率远高于两次世界大战之间的就业率，尽管福利水平相当。通过关注英国在第一次世界大战后而不是在第二次世界大战后遭受巨大的负面行业冲击这一事实，该研究建议对两次世界大战之间和二战后进行统一核算。它开发了一个多部门模型，其中包括对就业的搜索摩擦，并考虑到与部门转移和失业期相关的人力资本下降。考虑到英国宽松的VI体系，这种模型能够评估大规模行业冲击对两次世界大战之间失业率的影响。该模型被用于20世纪80年代的欧洲研究。许多研究人员认为，欧洲在这一时期所经历的问题是由慷慨的失业救济、高度的劳工议价能力和巨大的部门冲击共同造成的。最后，该项目建立了一个关于两次世界大战之间经济的综合跨国数据库，以帮助促进对两次世界大战之间时期的进一步研究。这将是关于这一时期唯一有完整文件记录的可下载数据库。

This research continues work by the investigator on the macroeconomic effects of labor and industrial policies. The prior research developed a multi-sector dynamic general equilibrium insider/outsider model and used that model to quantitatively evaluate the macroeconomic impact of President Roosevelt's cartelization and labor market policies in the 1930s. The main finding of my previous research is that these New Deal policies were a key factor in the continuation of the Great Depression until World War II. The new research broadens and extends this work in two significant ways and so in doing resolves some key puzzles identified in the previous work. First, it develops a dynamic general equilibrium insider/outsider model with "hold-up": the ability of workers to grab rents from capital. This is a substantial theoretical innovation over the model in the previous work, which abstracted from hold-up. Theoretically, the model merges the earlier dynamic GE insider/outsider model with a hold-up friction in that workers can grab rents from firm investments made prior to the time that firms and workers bargain. The project shows how the equilibrium can be characterized and how it can be computed even with the additional complexity arising from industry-specific capital. This model has substantive quantitative implications for historical episodes in which government policies permitted labor to hold up capital. This model is used to study the macroeconomic effects of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which gave labor a significant ability to hold up firms. The specification of the model captures some key aspects of New Deal policies. The model with hold-up helps resolve two key puzzles highlighted in my earlier work: (1) the further deterioration of the economy after the NLRA was passed, and (2) the extraordinary low level of investment. The hold-up model predicts a further drop in output and employment and a further increase in the real wage after the NLRA was adopted, which is consistent with the data. The model also predicts a much lower level of investment than predicted by the earlier model without hold-up, and thus brings the theory closer in line with data. This finding suggests that "rent-grabbing" was a key factor that kept investment low during the New Deal. The proposal also outlines the application of this model to Europe. Second, past work is broadened by studying unemployment insurance policies that affect labor supply. A dynamic general equilibrium model is developed to study the macroeconomic implications of some historical depressions in which countries have adopted very generous unemployment benefits systems. This work indicated that Britain's unemployment insurance system -in conjunction with large, negative sector-specific shocks - was a key contributing factor to the depression. The new research develops a fully articulated model to quantitatively evaluate the macroeconomic impact of unemployment benefits during interwar Britain and during other historical episodes. This research differs considerably from the large existing literature that has analyzed the interwar British depression. It makes considerable use of dynamic general equilibrium theory, and it does not exclusively focus on UI. In fact, the research discusses how UI cannot be the whole story, because post-World War II employment was considerably higher than interwar employment, despite comparable levels of benefits. By focusing on the fact that Britain suffered large, negative sectoral shocks after World War I, but not after World War II, the research suggests a unified accounting of interwar and post-World War II. It develops a multi-sector model that includes a search friction on employment and takes into account the drop in human capital associated with sectoral shifts and spells of unemployment. Such a model is capable of assessing the impact of the large sectoral shocks on Britain's interwar unemployment given its generous VI system. The model is used to study Europe in 1980s. A number of researchers have suggested that the problems Europe experienced during this period arose from a combination of generous unemployment benefits, high degrees of labor bargaining power and large sectoral shocks. Finally, the project constructs a comprehensive cross-country database on interwar economies to help foster additional research on the interwar period. This will be the only fully documented, downloadable database on this period available.