Shouyong Shi

Bio: Shouyong Shi is an academic researcher from Pennsylvania State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Wage & Productivity. The author has an hindex of 36, co-authored 138 publications receiving 4987 citations. Previous affiliations of Shouyong Shi include CEMA & Queen's University.

Pricing and Matching with Frictions

Abstract: Suppose that n buyers each want one unit and m sellers each have one or more units of a good. Sellers post prices, and then buyers choose sellers. In symmetric equilibrium, similar sellers all post one price, and buyers randomize. Hence, more or fewer buyers may arrive than a seller can accommodate. We call this frictions. We solve for prices and the endogenous matching function for finite n and m and consider the limit as n and m grow. The matching function displays decreasing returns but converges to constant returns. We argue that the standard matching function in the literature is misspecified and discuss implications for the Beveridge curve.

A divisible search model of fiat money

Abstract: This paper extends the Kiyotaki-Wright search model of fiat money to allow for divisible money and goods. The extension allows me to examine the standard issues in monetary economics, such as the neutrality and superneutrality of money, by severing the artificial link in the Kiyotaki-Wright model between the money supply and the number of money holders. It is shown that money is neutral, but not superneutral. Money growth generates a trading opportunity effect: it changes the fraction of different agents in the economy and hence changes the probability with which agents have a successful match. In addition, money growth has a negative effect on the real money balance that is familiar in Walrasian monetary models. The balance of the two effects can imply a positive optimal money growth rate.

Efficient Search on the Job and the Business Cycle

Abstract: We build a directed search model of the labor market in which workers' transitions between unemployment, employment, and across employers are endogenous. We prove the existence, uniqueness and efficiency of a recursive equilibrium with the property that the distribution of workers across employment states does not affect the agents' values and strategies. Because of this property, we are able to compute the equilibrium outside the non-stochastic steady-state. We use a calibrated version of the model to measure the effect of productivity shocks on the US labor market. We find that productivity shocks generate procyclical fluctuations in the rate at which unemployed workers become employed and countercyclical fluctuations in the rate at which employed workers become unemployed. Moreover, we find that productivity shocks generate large countercyclical fluctuations in the number of vacancies opened for unemployed workers and even larger procyclical fluctuations in the number of vacancies created for employed workers. Overall, productivity shocks alone can account for 80 percent of unemployment volatility, 30 percent of vacancy volatility and for the nearly perfect negative correlation between unemployment and vacancies.

A directed search model of inequality with heterogeneous skills and skill-biased technology

Abstract: In this paper I analyse the directed search/matching problem in an economy with heterogeneous skills and skill-biased technology. A unique symmetric equilibrium exists and is socially efficient. Matching is partially mixed in the equilibrium. A high-tech firm receives both skilled and unskilled applicants with positive probability, and favours skilled workers, while a low-tech firm receives only unskilled applicants. The model generates wage inequality among identical unskilled workers, as well as between-skill inequality, despite the fact that all unskilled workers perform the same task and have the same productivity in the two types of firms. Inequality has interesting responses to skill-biased technological progress, a general productivity slowdown, and an exogenous increase in the skill supply elasticity.

The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies

Abstract: This paper argues that the textbook search and matching model cannot generate the observed business-cycle-frequency fluctuations in unemployment and job vacancies in response to shocks of a plausible magnitude. In the United States, the standard deviation of the vacancy-unemployment ratio is almost 20 times as large as the standard deviation of average labor productivity, while the search model predicts that the two variables should have nearly the same volatility. A shock that changes average labor productivity primarily alters the present value of wages, generating only a small movement along a downward-sloping Beveridge curve (unemploymentvacancy locus). A shock to the separation rate generates a counterfactually positive correlation between unemployment and vacancies. In both cases, the model exhibits virtually no propagation. (JEL E24, E32, J41, J63, J64)

Monetary Theory and Policy

Abstract: Part 1 Empirical evidence on money and output: introduction some basic correlations estimating the effect of money on output summary. Part 2 Money in a general equilibrium framework: introduction the Tobin effect money in the utility function summary appendix - the MIU approximation problems. Part 3 Money and transactions: introduction shopping-time models cash-in-advance models other approaches summary appendix - the CIA approximation problems. Part 4 Money and public finance: introduction bugdet accounting equilibrium seigniorage optimal taxation and seigniorage Friedman's rule revisited nonindexed tax systems problems. Part 5 Money and output in the short run: introduction flexible prices sticky prices and wages a framework for monetary analysis inflation persistence summary appendix problems. Part 6 Money and the open economy: introduction the Obstfeld-Rogoff two-country model policy coordination the small open economy summary appendix problems. Part 7 The credit channel of monetary policy: introduction imperfect information in credit markets macroeconomic implications does credit matter? summary. Part 8 Discretionary policy and time inconsistency: introduction inflation under discretionary policy solutions to the inflation bias is the inflation bias important? do central banking institutions matter? lessons and conclusions problems. Part 9 Monetary-policy operating procedures: introduction from instruments to goals the instrument-choice problem operating procedures and policy measures problems. Part 10 Interest rates and monetary policy: introduction interest-rate rule and the price level interest rate policies in general equilibrium models the term structure of interest rates a model for policy analysis summary problems.

Micro-Foundations of Urban Agglomeration Economies

Abstract: This handbook chapter studies the theoretical micro-foundations of urban agglomeration economies. We distinguish three types of micro-foundations, based on sharing, matching, and learning mechanisms. For each of these three categories, we develop one or more core models in detail and discuss the literature in relation to those models. This allows us to give a precise characterisation of some of the main theoretical underpinnings of urban agglomeration economies, to discuss modelling issues that arise when working with these tools, and to compare different sources of agglomeration economies in terms of the aggregate urban outcomes they produce as well as in terms of their normative implications.