Inflation Effects on the Labor Market: A Transition Rate Model

Abstract

本文在兩狀態（就業和失業）搜尋模型下，以估計保留工資的方法，應用美國NLSY 1980至1983年的個體資料，探討物價膨脹對就業和失業間之轉換率的影響。其中保留工資係以黑克門(Heckman)二階段估計法，修正工資訊息而得；估算轉換率的參數則以結構性轉換率模型，運用最大概似法取得。本文發現，未預期到的物價膨脹對轉換率的影響並不顯著，此隱含：政府採行不被勞動力預期的物價膨脹政策不會降低其失業率。

The impact of inflation, particularly unexpected inflation, on the operation of the labor market remains an important and empirically unresolved issue. Earlier work, largely based on time series analysis of industry aggregate quit data, found little impact of inflation on that critical labor market mechanism. This earlier work has been criticized for not adequately distinguishing between expected and unexpected inflation. At the same time, longitudinal micro data sets of high quality have become available, permitting the estimation of more complete transition models, that incorporate job acceptance by workers who are not employed as well as job termination by employed workers. This paper analyzes empirically the impact of unexpected and expected inflation on these labor market transitions. In a two-state (employment, unemployment) search model, the reservation approach is utilized in analyzing the male sub-sample of the 1979 Youth Cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLSY) over the period 1980 to 1983. The wage information is corrected for selectivity bias by a two-stage estimation method, and reservation wages are then derived. A maximum-likelihood technique is used with the structural transition model to estimate the parameters of the true wage offer distribution. Implied transition rates are then calculated. The impact of unexpected inflation on transition rates appears through its influence on the real reservation wage. Confirming the results of earlier works, the empirical results indicate that the impact of "unexpected" inflation on transition rates is insignificant because the impact of unexpected inflation on the intervening reservation wage is not significant. Hence, trying to "fool" youths by unexpected inflationary policies in order to reduce their unemployment rate is unlikely to be successful.