Intersectoral Labor Immobility, Sectoral Comovement, and News Shocks

Sectoral comovement of output and hours worked is a prominent feature of business cycle data. However, most two-sector neoclassical models fail to generate this sectoral comovement. We construct and estimate a two-sector neoclassical Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DGSE) model generating sectoral comovement in response to both anticipated and unanticipated shocks. The key to our model's success is a significant degree of intersectoral labor immobility, which we estimate using data on sectoral hours worked. Furthermore, we demonstrate that imperfect intersectoral labor mobility provides a better explanation for the sectoral comovement than an alternative model emphasizing the role of labor-supply wealth effects.