SEARCH FRICTIONS, UNEMPLOYMENT, AND HOUSING IN CITIES: THEORY AND POLICIES

type="main"> <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>We propose an urban search-matching model with land development. Wages, unemployment, prices of housing and land are endogenously determined. We characterize the steady-state equilibrium and then discuss the issue of efficiency. To explore interactions among markets, we implement comparative static analysis. We also consider three policies: an entry-cost policy that reduces firms' entry, a transportation policy that reduces commuting costs, and a housing policy that decreases rental prices. We find that the transportation and housing policies are more efficient if the unemployment rate is low, while the entry-cost policy is more efficient if the unemployment rate is high.