Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Roots of the Recent Recoveries: Labor Reforms or Private Sector Forces?

Contents:

Author Info

  • Jestaz, David

    (Alliance Program)

  • Phelps, Edmund S

    (Center on Capitalism and Society)

  • Zoega, Gylfi

    (Department of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics)

  • Fitoussi, Jean-Paul

    (OFCE)

Abstract

It is widely agreed that the natural unemployment rate recovered strongly in several OECD economies in the 1990s while not yet in the others. This paper draws on models by the authors endogenizing the path of the natural rate in order to trace the causes and apportion the credit. The results suggest that the five structural reforms of the labor market urged by the OECD Secretariat were effective and account for some of the recovery where adopted. However, the paper sees most of the recoveries as largely the emergence from structural slump to a structural boom--a boom brought by revived investment in employees, customers and fixed capital. Behind this revival is a recovery of business-asset valuations resulting from improved expectations for productivity growth and, judging by the stock market, hopes for a future lift in business earnings that exceeds extrapolations of the past--both driven by the "new economy."

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://spire.sciences-po.fr/hdl:/2441/5571/resources/2000-1fitoussi.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Sciences Po in its series Open Access publications from Sciences Po with number info:hdl:2441/5571.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 2000
Date of revision:
Publication status: Published in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (2000) v., p.-
Handle: RePEc:ner:sciepo:info:hdl:2441/5571

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.sciences-po.fr/

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Madsen, Jakob B, 1998. "General Equilibrium Macroeconomic Models of Unemployment: Can They Explain the Unemployment Path in the OECD?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 850-67, May.
  2. Nickell, S. & Layard, R., 1997. "Labour Market Institutions and Economic Performance," Papers 23, Centre for Economic Performance & Institute of Economics.
  3. Olivier Blanchard & Justin Wolfers, 1999. "The Role of Shocks and Institutions in the Rise of European Unemployment: The Aggregate Evidence," NBER Working Papers 7282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Layard, Richard & Nickell, Stephen & Jackman, Richard, 1991. "Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198284345, September.
  5. Layard, Richard & Nickell, Stephen, 1986. "Unemployment in Britain," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 53(210(S)), pages S121-69, Supplemen.
  6. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1985. "Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 223-47, April.
  7. Edmund S. Phelps & Gylfi Zoega, 1996. "The Incidence of Increased Unemployment in the Group of Seven, 1970-1994," Archive Discussion Papers 9621, Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics.
  8. Salop, Steven C, 1979. "A Model of the Natural Rate of Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(1), pages 117-25, March.
  9. 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.
  10. Nickell, S.J. & Ours, J.C. van, 1999. "The Netherlands and the United Kingdom: A European Unemployment Miracle?," Discussion Paper 1999-119, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
  11. Hoon, Hian Teck & Phelps, Edmund S, 1992. "Macroeconomic Shocks in a Dynamized Model of the Natural Rate of Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 889-900, September.
  12. Edmund S. Phelps, 1968. "Money-Wage Dynamics and Labor-Market Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76, pages 678.
  13. Oliver J. Blanchard, 1997. "The Medium Run," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(2), pages 89-158.
  14. George A. Akerlof & William R. Dickens & George L. Perry, 1996. "The Macroeconomics of Low Inflation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1), pages 1-76.
  15. Phelps, Edmund S & Zoega, Gylfi, 1997. "The Rise and Downward Trend of the Natural Rate," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 283-89, May.
  16. Nickell, Stephen, 1998. "Unemployment: Questions and Some Answers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 802-16, May.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Filling the Empty Box of Growth
    by Francesco Saraceno in Sparse Thoughts of a Gloomy European Economist on 2012-04-30 15:58:37
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ner:sciepo:info:hdl:2441/5571

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Administrator).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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