We revisit the hypothesis that cyclical fluctuations in unemployment are caused by shocks to the discount rate. We use a simple but rich search-theoretic model of the labour market in which the UE, EU and EE rates are all endogenous. Analytically, we show that an increase in the discount rate lowers the UE rate and, under some natural conditions, it lowers the EU rate. Quantitatively, we show that an increase in the discount rate from 4 to 10% generates a 3.5% decline in the UE rate and a 6% decline in the EU rate. These findings are at odds with the actual behaviour of the US labour market over the business cycle, which features a negative comovement between the UE and EU rates.

中文翻译：

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重新审视高折扣和高失业率假说

我们重新审视以下假设，即失业率的周期性波动是由贴现率的冲击引起的。我们使用劳动力市场的简单但丰富的搜索理论模型，其中UE，EU和EE率都是内生的。从分析上看，我们显示折现率的提高会降低UE利率，并且在某些自然条件下会降低EU利率。从数量上看，我们显示出贴现率从4％增加到10％会导致UE费率下降3.5％和EU费率下降6％。这些发现与美国劳动力市场在整个经济周期中的实际行为相矛盾，后者在UE和欧盟税率之间存在负向变动。