Unemployment and Credit Risk

Abstract

This paper studies the credit risk implications of labor market fluctuations, by incorporating defaultable debt into a textbook search model of unemployment. In the model, the present value of cash flows that firms extract from workers simultaneously drives unemployment dynamics and credit risk variation. The model generates fat right tails in both unemployment and credit spreads, and their strong co-movement over the business cycle, in line with the historical U.S. data from 1929 to 2015. Quantitatively, the model reasonably replicates the level, volatility and cyclicality of credit spreads. Overall, the paper highlights labor market fluctuations as an important macroeconomic driver of credit risk variation.