IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kea/keappr/ker-20190101-35-1-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reassessing the Inflows and Outflows of Unemployment in Korea

Author

Listed:
  • Jong-Suk Han

    (Korea Institute of Public Finance)

  • Jiwoon Kim

    (Korea Institute of Public Finance)

Abstract

Using data from the Economically Active Population Survey from 1986 to 2014, we comprehensively examine Korean unemployment dynamics using worker flows: inflow rates and outflow rates. We estimate both flow rates by carefully correcting for time aggregation bias, and quantify the contribution of changes in each flow rate to unemployment variability through steady-state and non-steady-state decompositions. Our baseline analysis reports the average of inflow rates as 1.6% and that of outflow rates as 48%. Moreover, despite the small size of the inflow rates, inflows account for 90% of unemployment variability. The significant contribution of inflows to unemployment fluctuation still appears even under a three-state model that includes inactive workers and heterogeneous flow rates by reasons for unemployment. The large contribution of inflows to unemployment changes despite high outflow rates is a unique feature of the Korean labor market not seen in previous studies of OECD countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Jong-Suk Han & Jiwoon Kim, 2019. "Reassessing the Inflows and Outflows of Unemployment in Korea," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 35, pages 25-59.
    • Handle: RePEc:kea:keappr:ker-20190101-35-1-02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://keapaper.kea.ne.kr/RePEc/kea/keappr/KER-20190101-35-1-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8921 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Darby, Michael R & Haltiwanger, John C & Plant, Mark W, 1985. "Unemployment Rate Dynamics and Persistent Unemployment under Rational Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 614-637, September.
    3. Per Krusell & Toshihiko Mukoyama & Richard Rogerson & Ayşegül Şahin, 2017. "Gross Worker Flows over the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(11), pages 3447-3476, November.
    4. Lin, Ching-Yang & Miyamoto, Hiroaki, 2012. "Gross worker flows and unemployment dynamics in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 44-61.
    5. Pietro Garibaldi & Etienne Wasmer, 2005. "Equilibrium Search Unemployment, Endogenous Participation, And Labor Market Flows," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(4), pages 851-882, June.
    6. Weh-Sol Moon, 2008. "Explaining the Cyclical Behavior of the Korean Labor Market (in Korean)," Economic Analysis (Quarterly), Economic Research Institute, Bank of Korea, vol. 14(4), pages 113-150, December.
    7. Nordmeier, Daniela, 2014. "Worker flows in Germany: Inspecting the time aggregation bias," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 70-83.
    8. Michael W. L. Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Ayşegül Şahin, 2013. "Unemployment Dynamics in the OECD," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 530-548, May.
    9. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/8921 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Robert E. Hall, 2005. "Employment Efficiency and Sticky Wages: Evidence from Flows in the Labor Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(3), pages 397-407, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jiwoon Kim, 2022. "The Recent Rise in Youth Unemployment Rate in Korea: A Flow Decomposition Analysis," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 38, pages 445-477.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Etienne Lalé, 2018. "Turbulence and the employment experience of older workers," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), pages 735-784, July.
    2. Sabine Klinger & Enzo Weber, 2016. "Decomposing Beveridge Curve Dynamics By Correlated Unobserved Components," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(6), pages 877-894, December.
    3. Hadadmoghadam , Malihe & Ebadi , Jafar & Rahmati , Mohammad Hossein & Shadkar , Mohammad Saeid, 2018. "Job Finding and Inflow to Unemployment: The Case of Iran," Journal of Money and Economy, Monetary and Banking Research Institute, Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, vol. 13(4), pages 491-499, October.
    4. Simmons, Michael, 2023. "Job-to-job transitions, job finding and the ins of unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    5. Panchanan Das, 2023. "Creation and Destruction of Jobs in Urban Labour Market: Role of Gender, Caste and Religion in India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 66(1), pages 225-237, March.
    6. Kohlbrecher, Britta & Merkl, Christian & Nordmeier, Daniela, 2016. "Revisiting the matching function," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 350-374.
    7. Sara Rica & Yolanda F. Rebollo-Sanz, 2017. "Gender Differentials in Unemployment Ins and Outs during the Great Recession in Spain," De Economist, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 67-99, March.
    8. Petr Maleček, 2014. "Toky dlouhodobé nezaměstnanosti [Long-Term Unemployment Flows]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2014(4), pages 560-576.
    9. Per Krusell & Toshihiko Mukoyama & Richard Rogerson & Aysegul Sahin, 2020. "Gross Worker Flows and Fluctuations in the Aggregate Labor Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 205-226, August.
    10. Amaral, Pedro S. & Tasci, Murat, 2016. "The cyclical behavior of equilibrium unemployment and vacancies across OECD countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 184-201.
    11. Hairault, Jean-Olivier & Zhutova, Anastasia, 2018. "The cyclicality of labor-market flows: A multiple-shock approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 150-172.
    12. Barnichon, Regis, 2012. "Vacancy posting, job separation and unemployment fluctuations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 315-330.
    13. G. C. Lim & Robert Dixon & Jan C. Ours, 2021. "Beyond Okun’s law: output growth and labor market flows," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(3), pages 1387-1409, March.
    14. Jennifer C. Smith, 2011. "The Ins and Outs of UK Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(552), pages 402-444, May.
    15. Klinger, Sabine & Weber, Enzo, 2014. "Decomposing Beveridge curve dynamics by correlated unobserved components: The impact of labour market reforms in Germany," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100499, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    16. Domenico Ferraro, 2018. "The Asymmetric Cyclical Behavior of the U.S. Labor Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 145-162, October.
    17. Jitender Singh, 2023. "Unemployment Fluctuations in Urban Labour Market in India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 66(1), pages 81-111, March.
    18. Lin, Ching-Yang & Miyamoto, Hiroaki, 2012. "Gross worker flows and unemployment dynamics in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 44-61.
    19. Murat Tasci, 2012. "The ins and outs of unemployment in the long run: unemployment flows and the natural rate," Working Papers (Old Series) 1224, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    20. Mary C. Daly & Bast Hobijn & Ayşeqül Şahin & Robert G. Valletta, 2012. "Rynki pracy w modelu poszukiwań i dopasowań: czy naturalna stopa bezrobocia rzeczywiście wzrosła?," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 11-12, pages 147-172.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment; Inflow; Outflow; Time Aggregation Bias; Factor Decomposition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kea:keappr:ker-20190101-35-1-02. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: KEA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/keaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.