Three essays on macroeconomics

Abstract

This thesis is an applied research on the Hong Kong's aggregate labor market from the perspective of the search and matching theories of macroeconomics. The stylized facts of this labor market are summarized as follows: unemployment and vacancies are more volatile than in the U.S., Japan, and Spain; high separation rate volatilities and the normal negatively-sloped Beveridge curve coexist in Hong Kong. The basic search and matching model cannot generate the high volatilities of the unemployment rate, vacancy rate and market tightness observed in the data if Shimer (2005)'s calibration strategy is used, which indicates that the Shimer puzzle exists in Hong Kong; and the Shimer puzzle is partly solved if Hagedorn and Manovskii (2008)'s calibration strategy with a high outside option and low bargaining power is used. Then I show that the low effective bargaining power can be rationalized by a structrual model with heterogeneous agents without imposing a low bargaining power on each worker.

Date of Award	14 Feb 2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Yum Keung Fred KWAN (Supervisor) & Siu Hung Eden YU (Supervisor)