IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/nierwp/0120.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor-Force Participation Rates and the Informational Value of Unemployment Rates: Evidence from Disaggregated US Data

Author

Listed:
  • Gustavsson, Magnus

    (Department of Economics, Uppsala University)

  • Österholm, Pär

    (National Institute of Economic Research)

Abstract

The informational value of the aggregate US unemployment rate has recently been questioned be-cause of a unit root in the labor-force participation rate; the lack of mean reversion implies that long-run changes in unemployment rates are highly unlikely to reflect long-run changes in jobless-ness. This paper shows that this critique also extends to unemployment rates for sub-populations, such as prime-aged males.

Suggested Citation

  • Gustavsson, Magnus & Österholm, Pär, 2010. "Labor-Force Participation Rates and the Informational Value of Unemployment Rates: Evidence from Disaggregated US Data," Working Papers 120, National Institute of Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:nierwp:0120
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.konj.se/download/18.4ee9b512150ed5e093b90709/1447246077431/Working-Paper-120-Labor-Force-Participation-Rates-and-the-Informational-Value-of-Unemployment-Rates-Evidence-from-Disaggregated-US-Data.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Florence Jaumotte, 2004. "Labour Force Participation of Women: Empirical Evidence on The Role of Policy and Other Determinants in OECD Countries," OECD Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2003(2), pages 51-108.
    2. Nicolau, João, 2002. "Stationary Processes That Look Like Random Walks— The Bounded Random Walk Process In Discrete And Continuous Time," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 99-118, February.
    3. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2008. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 300-323, May.
    4. Gustavsson, Magnus & Osterholm, Par, 2006. "The informational value of unemployment statistics: A note on the time series properties of participation rates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 428-433, September.
    5. Jonathan A. Parker & Bruce Preston, 2005. "Precautionary Saving and Consumption Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1119-1143, September.
    6. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    7. Chinhui Juhn & Kevin Murphy & Robert Topel, 2002. "Current Unemployment, Historically Contemplated," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 33(1), pages 79-136.
    8. Chinhui Juhn & Kevin M. Murphy & Robert H. Topel, 1991. "Why Has the Natural Rate of Unemployment Increased over Time?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 22(2), pages 75-142.
    9. Blinder, Alan S & Esaki, Howard Y, 1978. "Macroeconomic Activity and Income Distribution in the Postwar United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(4), pages 604-609, November.
    10. Elliott, Graham & Rothenberg, Thomas J & Stock, James H, 1996. "Efficient Tests for an Autoregressive Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(4), pages 813-836, July.
    11. Murphy, Kevin M & Topel, Robert H, 1997. "Unemployment and Nonemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 295-300, May.
    12. Mireille Jacobson, 2004. "Baby Booms and Drug Busts: Trends in Youth Drug use in the United States, 1975–2000," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1481-1512.
    13. Eric D. Gould & Bruce A. Weinberg & David B. Mustard, 2002. "Crime Rates And Local Labor Market Opportunities In The United States: 1979-1997," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 45-61, February.
    14. Kenneth F. Wallis, 1987. "Time Series Analysis Of Bounded Economic Variables," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(1), pages 115-123, January.
    15. Benati, Luca, 2001. "Some empirical evidence on the 'discouraged worker' effect," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 387-395, March.
    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. Sibel Cengiz & Afsin Sahin, 2014. "Modelling nonlinear behavior of labor force participation rate by STAR: An application for Turkey," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), International Hellenic University (IHU), Kavala Campus, Greece (formerly Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology - EMaTTech), vol. 7(1), pages 113-127, April.
    2. Nicholas Apergis & Ibrahim Arisoy, 2017. "Unemployment and labor force participation across the US States: new evidence from panel data," SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, University of Piraeus, vol. 67(4), pages 45-84, October-D.
    3. Brantley Liddle, 2013. "The Energy, Economic Growth, Urbanization Nexus Across Development: Evidence from Heterogeneous Panel Estimates Robust to Cross-Sectional Dependence," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    4. Zeynel Abidin Ozdemir & Mehmet Balcilar & Aysit Tansel, 2013. "International Labour Force Participation Rates By Gender: Unit Root Or Structural Breaks?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65, pages 142-164, May.
    5. De-Chih Liu, 2017. "The Discouraged Worker and Suicide in the United States," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 134(2), pages 771-787, November.
    6. Zeynel Abidin Ozdemir & Mehmet Balcilar & Aysit Tansel, 2013. "International Labour Force Participation Rates By Gender: Unit Root Or Structural Breaks?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65, pages 142-164, May.
    7. Paraskevi Salamaliki & Ioannis Venetis, 2014. "Smooth transition trends and labor force participation rates in the United States," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 629-652, March.
    8. De-Chih Liu, 2014. "Labor-Force Participation Rates and the Informational Value of Unemployment Rates in US: Evidence from Regional Data," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 116(2), pages 447-455, April.

    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. De-Chih Liu, 2014. "Labor-Force Participation Rates and the Informational Value of Unemployment Rates in US: Evidence from Regional Data," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 116(2), pages 447-455, April.
    2. Magnus Gustavsson & Pär Österholm, 2007. "Does Unemployment Hysteresis Equal Employment Hysteresis?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 83(261), pages 159-173, June.
    3. Gustavsson, Magnus & Osterholm, Par, 2006. "The informational value of unemployment statistics: A note on the time series properties of participation rates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 428-433, September.
    4. Paraskevi Salamaliki & Ioannis Venetis, 2014. "Smooth transition trends and labor force participation rates in the United States," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 629-652, March.
    5. Aysit Tansel & Zeynel Abidin Ozdemir, 2018. "Unemployment invariance hypothesis, added and discouraged worker effects in Canada," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 39(7), pages 929-936, October.
    6. Österholm, Pär, 2010. "Unemployment and labour-force participation in Sweden," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 205-208, March.
    7. Aysit Tansel & Zeynel Abidin Ozdemir, 2016. "Unemployment Invariance Hypothesis, Added and Discouraged Worker Effects in Canada?," ERC Working Papers 1717, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised Dec 2017.
    8. Emerson, Jamie, 2011. "Unemployment and labor force participation in the United States," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 111(3), pages 203-206, June.
    9. Sibel Cengiz & Afsin Sahin, 2014. "Modelling nonlinear behavior of labor force participation rate by STAR: An application for Turkey," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), International Hellenic University (IHU), Kavala Campus, Greece (formerly Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology - EMaTTech), vol. 7(1), pages 113-127, April.
    10. Beechey, Meredith & Hjalmarsson, Erik & sterholm, Pr, 2009. "Testing the expectations hypothesis when interest rates are near integrated," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 934-943, May.
    11. Niels Haldrup & Robinson Kruse & Timo Teräsvirta & Rasmus T. Varneskov, 2013. "Unit roots, non-linearities and structural breaks," Chapters, in: Nigar Hashimzade & Michael A. Thornton (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Macroeconomics, chapter 4, pages 61-94, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Zeynel Abidin Ozdemir & Mehmet Balcilar & Aysit Tansel, 2013. "International Labour Force Participation Rates By Gender: Unit Root Or Structural Breaks?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65, pages 142-164, May.
    13. Alena Bicakova, 2006. "Market vs. Institutions: The Trade-off Between Unemployment and Wage Inequality Revisited," Economics Working Papers ECO2006/31, European University Institute.
    14. Tansel, Aysit & Ozdemir, Zeynel Abidin & Aksoy, Emre, 2016. "Does Unemployment Invariance Hypothesis Hold for Canada?," MPRA Paper 72869, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Wolcott, Erin L., 2021. "Employment inequality: Why do the low-skilled work less now?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 161-177.
    16. Nicholas Apergis & Ibrahim Arisoy, 2017. "Unemployment and labor force participation across the US States: new evidence from panel data," SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, University of Piraeus, vol. 67(4), pages 45-84, October-D.
    17. Aysit Tansel & Zeynel Abidin Ozdemir & Emre Aksoy, 2016. "Does Unemployment Invariance Hypothesis Hold for Canada?," Working Papers 2016/3, Turkish Economic Association.
    18. Nemore, Francesco, 2018. "Unemployment and Labour Force Participation in Italy," MPRA Paper 85067, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Zeynel Abidin Ozdemir & Mehmet Balcilar & Aysit Tansel, 2013. "International Labour Force Participation Rates By Gender: Unit Root Or Structural Breaks?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65, pages 142-164, May.
    20. Rania Gihleb & Osnat Lifshitz, 2022. "Dynamic Effects of Educational Assortative Mating on Labor Supply," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 302-327, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unit-root test;

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:nierwp:0120. 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: Sarah Hegardt Grant (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/kongvse.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.