Customer Reviews

Equilibrium Unemployment Theory - 2nd Edition

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The book is written by one of the pioneers of matching theory approach to unemployment theory. The book starts with very simple matching models and builds its way up by adding something at each chapter. So the book starts by a deterministic model of equilibrium with only labor as input. you see that first capital is added to the model, then dynamics of the model are discussed and balanced paths are derived. Then random elements and shocks are added,then heterogeneity among workers is considered and then search efforts and other elements are being added.

I think the book is very well written and the flow of topics and ideas is smooth and easy to grasp. Verbal discussion and explanations are clear, informative and are always accompanied by the proper formulas and derivations. Note that the book covers only matching models of labor and completely ignores other types of models (like efficiency wage, implicit contracts, ...). Also chapters don't have exercises at the end, which I don't think is a major handicap for the book, as it is more meant for graduate level research.

In general I think this book makes understanding the matching theory easy and anybody who wants to work on labor economics should know about this book.