Household Search and the Aggregate Labour Market
构建了一个包含劳动力市场摩擦、不完全金融市场和双成员家庭的理论模型，解释美国数据中参与率与经济活动弱相关等周期特征，对研究失业和劳动力参与的经济学者有参考价值。
We develop a theoretical model with labour market frictions, incomplete financial markets, and with households which have two members. Households face unemployment risks, but their members adjust their labour supplies to insure against unemployment. We use the model to explain the cyclical properties of aggregate employment and participation. As in the U.S. data, the model predicts that the participation rate (the fraction of individuals that want jobs) is not strongly correlated with aggregate economic activity. This property is in sharp contrast to the strongly procyclical participation predicted by both neoclassical models and models with search frictions, when we assume bachelor households or households with infinitely many members (complete markets). In the two-member household model and in the data, primary earners are always in the labour force, secondary earners have a mildly countercyclical participation rate, and a mildly procyclical employment rate. Their behaviour insures the household against unemployment risks.