hero working papers

An Estimated Monetary DSGE Model with Unemployment and Staggered Nominal

Number: 341
Year: 2008
Author(s): Mark Gertler, Luca Sala and Antonella Trigari

We develop and estimate a medium scale macroeconomic model that allows for unemployment
and staggered nominal wage contracting. In contrast to most existing quantitative models,
employment adjustment is on the extensive margain and the employment of existing workers is
efficient. Wage rigidity, however, affects the hiring of new workers. The former is introduced
via the staggered Nash bargaing setup of Gertler and Trigari (2006). A robust finding is that
the model with wage rigidity provides a better description of the data than does a flexible wage
version. Overall, the model fits the data roughly as well as existing quantitative macroeconomic
models, such as Smets and Wouters (2007) or Christiano, Eichenbaum and Evans (2005). More
work is necessary, however, to ensure a robust identification of the key labor market parameters.