Can the Matching Model Account for Spanish Unemployment

This paper aims at explaining the dynamics of labor markets in Spain, especially the high persistence of unemployment and the Beveridge curve. We build a stochastic dynamic general equilibrium matching model, which assumes failures in the matching between vacancies and unemployed. We calibrate the model for the Spanish economy and simulate it considering two sources of exogenous shocks: a technological one and a reallocation one. The model is able to mimic the main stylized facts for the Spanish labor market. Moreover, we show that reallocation shocks are the main source that drive the labor market dynamics. We also analyze the dynamics of the Beveridge curve for Spain. JEL classi…cation: E24, J64