'Labor Markets Don't Clear: Let's Stop Pretending They Do'

Roger farmer:

Labor Markets Don't Clear: Let's Stop Pretending They Do: Beginning with the work of Robert Lucas and Leonard Rapping in 1969, macroeconomists have modeled the labor market as if the wage always adjusts to equate the demand and supply of labor.

I don't think that's a very good approach. It's time to drop the assumption that the demand equals the supply of labor.

Why would you want to delete the labor market clearing equation from an otherwise standard model? Because setting the demand equal to the supply of labor is a terrible way of understanding business cycles. ...

Why is this a big deal? Because 90% of the macro seminars I attend, at conferences and universities around the world, still assume that the labor market is an auction where anyone can work as many hours as they want at the going wage. Why do we let our students keep doing this?