Consider an economy that consists of workers, who can be employed (E) or unemployed (U), and jobs, which can be either filled (F) or vacant (V). Time is continuous, and we consider a steady state. Each job can have at most one worker. Vacancies can be created or eliminated freely. There is a cost C per unit of time of maintaining a job. When a worker is employed, she produces output at rate A > C per unit of time, and is paid w per unit of time. The labor force is constant at L, L = E + U. A worker’s utility per unit of time is 0 if unemployed and w if employed. Jobs end at exogenous rate b per unit of time. Labour market frictions are proxied by the so-called matching function: unemployment and vacancies yield a flow of new jobs at rate per unit of time M = M(U,V). When an unemployed worker and a firm with a vacancy meet, they choose w so that each gets the same gain. Workers maximize the expected present discounted value of their lifetime utility. Firms maximize the expected present discounted value of lifetime profits. The time horizon is infinite. The discount rate for both firms and workers is r. (a) [25 marks] Derive the Bellman equations that characterize the optimal behaviour of both workers and firms. (b) [25 marks] What would be the competitive labour market equilibrium in the absence of frictions? Why does the search/matching model predict unemployment? Why does a fall in productivity raise unemployment? [There is no need to solve for the model’s equilibrium to answer this part.]