This paper argues that the canonical search-and-matching model cannot generate the observed cyclical asymmetry of the unemployment rate. In the United States, the unemployment rate raises quickly and abruptly at the onset of contractions and declines slowly and gradually during expansions. This...

How has the internet affected search and hiring, and what are the implications for aggregate unemployment? Answering these questions empirically has proven difficult due to selection in internet use and difficulty in measuring the search activities of both sides of the labor market. This paper...

Unemployment occurs because workers and firms have control over wages and prices. The exercise of market power over wages interacts with its exercise over prices. Understanding this interaction sheds new light on the effects of policy interventions on unemployment and growth. Reforms that result...

I present a model where firms and workers set wages above the market-clearing level. Unemployment is thus generated by their exercise of market power. Because both the labor and product markets are imperfectly competitive, market power in the labor market interacts with market power in the...