دانلود رایگان مقاله وثیقه زمین و پویایی بازار کار در فرانسه

abstract

The value of land in the balance sheet of French firms correlates positively with their hiring and investment flows. To explore the relationship between these variables, we develop a macroeconomic model with firms that are subject to both credit and labor market frictions. The value of collateral is driven by the forward-looking dynamics of the land price, which reacts endogenously to fundamental and non-fundamental (sunspot) shocks. We calibrate the model to French data and find that land price shocks give rise to significant amplification and hump-shaped responses of investment, vacancies and unemployment that are in line with the data. We show that both the endogenous movements in the firms' discount factor and the sluggish response of the land price are key elements that drive the results.

6. Conclusions

In this paper, we provide a macroeconomic model in which firms are subject to labor and credit market frictions and use land and capital as collateralizable assets in borrowing. When calibrated on French data, a key property of the model is that it generates an indeterminate steady state provided that the share of capital that is accepted as collateral is sufficiently low. Our main finding is that the indeterminate model generates amplification and hump-shaped propagation of fundamental land price shocks that are empirically relevant. In particular, it replicates the data patterns that investment, vacancies and unemployment follow after a land price shock hits the economy. In contrast, TFP shocks, leverage shocks or pure sunspot shocks generate impulse responses that are at odds with the data.

In unreported analysis, we show that similar results also hold for the same model calibrated on US data. Although the amplification result is broadly in line with Liu et al. (2013a) who estimate a larger model with Bayesian methods, there are key differences that should be stressed. First, there is a new channel that amplifies financial shocks to the labor market via the discount factor of credit-constrained firms. Second, our model generates local indeterminacy, which may not be easily be picked up by standard Bayesian estimation techniques. Third, the indeterminacy is precisely the reason why the labor market responses to land price shocks are hump-shaped and exhibit considerable persistence which is in line with the data. In view of these differences, further research that allows determinate and indeterminate models to compete in the parameter estimations seems promising to uncover how the various shocks affect investment and labor market dynamics. In addition, it remains an open question to what extent these results can be extended to European economies that have been subject to larger real-estate swings, like Spain and the UK, and whether countries with milder land price movements, like Germany, look any different.