IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lev/levppb/ppb_39.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Unmeasured Labor Force, The Growth in Work Hours

Author

Listed:
  • Barry Bluestone
  • Stephen Rose

Abstract

Is the current labor market as tight as official statistics would seem to indicate? If incumbent workers increase their hours of work, it is irrelevant to the unemployment rate, but hardly irrelevant to the level of labor supply. Bluestone and Rose find that job insecurity and stagnating wages have made Americans willing to work those extra hours to build a financial cushion, and a 1 percent increase in hours worked per worker for a fixed labor supply is equivalent in terms of labor supply to a 1 percent increase in the number of workers. This more realistic picture of labor supply has important implications for expectations that welfare recipients can easily find jobs, for reforms in labor market statistics to provide better information, and for the direction of monetary policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Barry Bluestone & Stephen Rose, "undated". "The Unmeasured Labor Force, The Growth in Work Hours," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_39, Levy Economics Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:lev:levppb:ppb_39
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/ppb39.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James K. Galbraith, 1997. "Time to Ditch the NAIRU," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 93-108, Winter.
    2. Robert J. Gordon, 1997. "The Time-Varying NAIRU and Its Implications for Economic Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 11-32, Winter.
    3. Levy, Frank & Murnane, Richard J, 1992. "U.S. Earnings Levels and Earnings Inequality: A Review of Recent Trends and Proposed Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 1333-1381, September.
    4. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1997. "The NAIRU, Unemployment and Monetary Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 33-49, Winter.
    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. Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, 1998. "(Full) Employment Policy: Theory and Practice," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_258, Levy Economics Institute.
    2. Marc-Andre Pigeon & L. Randall Wray, "undated". "Did the Clinton Rising Tide Raise All Boats? Job Opportunity for the Less Skilled," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_45, Levy Economics Institute.

    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. Franz Wolfgang, 2001. "Neues von der NAIRU? / News from the NAIRU?," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 221(3), pages 256-284, June.
    2. Tanya Suchoy & Amit Friedman, 2002. "The NAIRU in Israel: an Unobserved Components Approach," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2002.08, Bank of Israel.
    3. Aleksejs Meļihovs & Anna Zasova, 2009. "Assessment of the natural rate of unemployment and capacity utilisation in Latvia," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 9(2), pages 25-46, December.
    4. Crary, David B., 2000. "Labor quality, natural unemployment, and US inflation," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 325-336.
    5. Bozani, Vasiliki & Drydakis, Nick, 2011. "Studying the NAIRU and its Implications," IZA Discussion Papers 6079, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Peter Isard & Douglas Laxton & Ann-Charlotte Eliasson, 1999. "Simple Monetary Policy Rules Under Model Uncertainty," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(4), pages 537-577, November.
    7. Ferri, Piero & Greenberg, Edward & Day, Richard H., 2001. "The Phillips curve, regime switching, and the NAIRU," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 23-37, September.
    8. Antonella Palumbo, 2008. "I metodi di stima del PIL potenziale tra fondamenti di Teoria economica e Contenuto empirico," Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' 0092, Department of Economics - University Roma Tre.
    9. Hein, Eckhard, 2001. "Institutions and macroeconomic performance: Central bank independence, labour market institutions and the perspectives for inflation and employment in the European Monetary Union," WSI Working Papers 95, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    10. N. Groenewold & A.J. Hagger, 1997. "The US natural rate: A "Lilien" time-series, January 1948 to August 1996," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 97-10, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    11. Lawrence F Katz, 1998. "Reflections on US Labour Market Performance," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Guy Debelle & Jeff Borland (ed.),Unemployment and the Australian Labour Market, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    12. Hein, Eckhard, 2003. "Die NAIRU: Eine post-keynesianische Interpretation," WSI Working Papers 113, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    13. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2001. "Prices, Wages and the U.S. NAIRU in the 1990s," NBER Working Papers 8320, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Rod Cross & Julia Darby & Jonathan Ireland, 1997. "Uncertainties Surrounding Natural Rate Estimates in the G7," Working Papers 9712, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    15. Eckhard Hein, 2002. "Monetary policy and wage bargaining in the EMU: restrictive ECB policies, high unemployment, nominal wage restraint and inflation above the target," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 55(222), pages 299-337.
    16. Kromphardt, Jürgen & Logeay, Camille, 2007. "Changes in the Balance of Power Between the Wage and Price Setters and the Central Bank: Consequences for the Phillips Curve and the NAIRU," Kiel Working Papers 1354, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    17. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Forecasting inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 293-335, October.
    18. Kee, Hiau Looi & Hoon, Hian Teck, 2005. "Trade, capital accumulation and structural unemployment: an empirical study of the Singapore economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 125-152, June.
    19. Carlin Wendy & Soskice David, 2005. "The 3-Equation New Keynesian Model --- A Graphical Exposition," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-38, December.
    20. Vincent Dadam & Nicola Viegi, 2021. "Estimating a New Keynesian Wage Phillips Curve," Working Papers 202107, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    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:lev:levppb:ppb_39. 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: Elizabeth Dunn (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.levyinstitute.org .

    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.