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Putting the Beveridge Curve Back to Work by Thomas A

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Putting the Beveridge Curve Back to Work by Thomas A Economic Brief September 2014, EB14-09 Putting the Beveridge Curve Back to Work By Thomas A. Lubik and Karl Rhodes After the recession of 2007–09, the Beveridge curve seemed to shift signifi - cantly outward as the job-vacancy rate increased with no corresponding decrease in the unemployment rate. A new time-varying analysis of the Beveridge curve from the early 1950s through 2011 could lend support to the idea that skill mismatch due to technological change is the most likely driver of the curve’s outward shifts, including its most recent movement. This analysis suggests that expansionary monetary policy has done little in recent years to reduce the unemployment rate. The Beveridge curve refl ects the highly negative another British economist who studied the dif- correlation between the job-vacancy rate and fi culties of matching workers to jobs in the 1930s the unemployment rate. When economists plot and 1940s.2 these two variables on a graph with the unem- ployment rate on the x axis and the job-vacancy The simple search-and-matching model of labor rate on the y axis, the pattern consistently takes markets explains movements along the Bev- the shape of a downward-sloping, concave curve. eridge curve quite well. At the peak of a business (See Figure 1.) cycle, the unemployment rate is low, and the job-vacancy rate is high, refl ecting many unfi lled This curve was developed by British economists positions. As the economy slows, companies post J.C.R. Dow and L.A. Dicks-Mireaux in 1958.1 Re- fewer vacancies, causing the job-vacancy rate to searchers started calling it the Beveridge curve in decline and the unemployment rate to rise. This the 1980s in honor of William Henry Beveridge, combination produces a downward movement along the Beveridge curve. At or near the bottom Figure 1: The Stylized Beveridge Curve of the business cycle, fi rms start posting more vacancies again, causing the vacancy rate to increase and the unemployment rate to fall. This combination produces an upward move along the Beveridge curve. The Time-Varying Beveridge Curve Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen once called the Beveridge curve “the neglected stepsister of Job-Vacancy Rate Job-Vacancy macroeconomics.” She was commenting on re- search by MIT economists Olivier Jean Blanchard and Peter Diamond, who noted in 1989 that the Unemployment Rate EB14-09 - Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Page 1 Beveridge curve “has very much played second fi ddle” the skills that employers needed and the skills that to the Phillips curve. They declared that the Beveridge unemployed workers off ered.4 This type of mismatch curve “comes conceptually fi rst and contains essen- occurs when technological change reduces demand tial information about the functioning of the labor for commonly held basic skills while increasing de- market and the shocks that aff ect it. … Examination mand for advanced skills that are harder to fi nd. of the joint movement of unemployment and vacan- Such an imbalance causes the unemployment rate cies can tell us a great deal about the eff ectiveness of and the job-vacancy rate to rise simultaneously, the matching process, as well as about the nature of shifting the Beveridge curve to the right. This mis- shocks aff ecting the labor market.”3 match also might explain why the Federal Reserve’s highly accommodative monetary policy seemed to After the recession of 2007–09, the Beveridge curve have little eff ect on the unemployment rate during seemed to shift to the right as job vacancies in- and after the recession.5 creased substantially while the unemployment rate remained elevated. This apparent deviation from the The large outward hook on the bottom of the Bev- two variables’ long history of negative correlation eridge curve surprised many economists. The con- caused the bottom of the Beveridge curve to develop sistency of the curve had become the most robust a large outward hook. (See Figure 2.) Some econo- stylized fact in macroeconomics, but the big hook mists attributed this big hook primarily to expansions following the recession of 2007–09 seemed to sug- and extensions of unemployment benefi ts, while gest that something had changed dramatically in others attributed it primarily to a mismatch between the labor market. Figure 2: Evolution of the Beveridge Curve from Q4 2007 through Q4 2011 6 5 Q4 2011 Q4 2007 4 Job-Vacancy Rate (Percent) Rate Job-Vacancy 3 4 5 687 9 10 11 Unemployment Rate (Percent) Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Conference Board Help-Wanted Index, and Barnichon’s extension of the index. Note: The vacancy rate equals vacancies posted in the Help-Wanted Index and Barnichon’s extension divided by the number of workers in the labor force. All data are seasonally adjusted. Page 2 Given this intriguing twist in the data, one of the au- GDP growth in the model to help them identify one thors of this Economic Brief (Lubik) and Luca Benati, an permanent shock (which can be thought of as tech- economist at the University of Bern, decided to study nological change) by tracking permanent changes in the evolution of the Beveridge curve using a model real GDP growth rates across business cycles. Benati that allows for the possibility that the curve may have and Lubik also incorporate insights from the simple changed over time.6 They built a Bayesian structural search-and-matching model to identify two other vector autoregression model with time-varying types of shocks, those that move the unemployment parameters. In other words, they created an empirical rate and the job-vacancy rate in the same direction model that describes the relationships between the and those that move the two variables in opposite job-vacancy rate, the unemployment rate, and real directions.8 gross domestic product (GDP) from the early 1950s through 2011. The model’s time-varying parameters In the search-and-matching model, an expected in- facilitate the analysis of period-by-period changes in crease in production (driven either by higher produc- these relationships. tivity or anticipation of greater sales) requires a fi rm to hire more workers. The fi rm posts more vacancies, Benati and Lubik base the model’s job-vacancy rate and these open positions eventually are fi lled by job on the Conference Board Help-Wanted Index and seekers, many of them previously unemployed. So Régis Barnichon’s extension of it.7 They include real the rise in vacancy postings goes hand in hand with Figure 3: Evolution of the Beveridge Curve by Business Cycle 11 10 Q1 1953 - Q2 1957 Q3 1957 - Q1 1960 9 Q2 1960 - Q3 1969 Q4 1969 - Q3 1973 Q4 1973 - Q4 1979 Q1 1980 - Q2 1990 8 Q3 1990 - Q4 2000 Q1 2001 - Q3 2007 Q4 2007 - Q4 2011 7 6 Job-Vacancy Rate (Percent) Rate Job-Vacancy 5 4 3 23578101149126 Unemployment Rate (Percent) Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Conference Board Help-Wanted Index, and Barnichon’s extension of the index. Note: The vacancy rate equals vacancies posted in the Help-Wanted Index and Barnichon’s extension divided by the number of workers in the labor force. All data are seasonally adjusted. Page 3 a decline in unemployment. This mechanism under- rary shocks. One interpretation of this fi nding is that lies the negative slope of the Beveridge curve and the persistently outward shifts of the Beveridge curve allows Benati and Lubik to identify a cyclical shock have been driven primarily by skill mismatch due to that causes the two variables to move in opposite technological change. directions. The other type of shock can be identifi ed by observing that improvements in the matching Benati and Lubik’s analysis suggests that there may process—better job-search assistance, for example— be one or two exceptions to this general trend, but lead to a decline in unemployment and a reduction the large outward hook following the recession of in vacancy postings. With improved match effi ciency, 2007–09 is not one of them. The clearest exception fi rms need to post fewer vacancies in order to hire a may have occurred during the Volcker disinfl ation target number of workers. (1979–83), when Benati and Lubik’s analysis indicates that the unemployment rate and the job-vacancy rate Extraordinary Times were driven by one factor rather than some combina- The slope of the Beveridge curve changes some- tion of technological and cyclical shocks. Their model what during each business cycle from the early cannot identify monetary policy as that single driving 1950s through 2011. (See Figure 3.) At the bottom force because monetary policy does not enter into of several cycles—including the Volcker disinfl ation the model in any way. But it is reasonable to assume (1979–83)—the curve hooks outward, as it did follow- that the Federal Reserve’s contractionary policy under ing the recession of 2007–09. Then the curve circles the leadership of then-Chairman Paul Volcker was back toward its previous position. Blanchard and strong enough to crowd out all other factors at the Diamond referred to this pattern as a “counterclock- time.9 By this same logic, another possible exception wise loop,” but frequently the curve does not quite to technology’s dominant role may have occurred close the counterclockwise loop. In other words, it during the Great Infl ation of the 1970s. shifts outward. The curve loops clockwise (inward) at the top of some business cycles, regaining signfi cant Policy Implications ground from 1986 through 1989 and again from 1995 Analyzing the evolution of the Beveridge curve by through 1999.
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