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What goes up sometimes stays up: Shocks and Institutions as Determinants of Unemployment Persistence

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  • Gianni Amisano

    (University of Brescia, Italy)

  • Massimiliano Serati

    (Cattaneo University, Italy)

Abstract

We analyse the determinants of unemployment persistence in four OECDcountries byestimating a structural Bayesian VAR with an informative priorbased on an insiders/outsiders model. We explicitly insert unemployment ben-efits and labour taxes so that our identification is not affected by the Faust andLeeper (1997) critique. We find widespread hysteresis: demand shocks play adominant role in explaining unemployment also in the medium-run. Moreoverreal wages have low sensitivity to cyclical fluctuations and to labour marketdisequilibria. Our results emphasise the real power of the unions and their in-teractions with structural shocks and other institutions as crucial determinantsof hysteresis.

Suggested Citation

  • Gianni Amisano & Massimiliano Serati, 2002. "What goes up sometimes stays up: Shocks and Institutions as Determinants of Unemployment Persistence," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-116/4, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20020116
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    4. Echavarría-Soto, Juan José & López, Enrique & Ocampo, Sergio & Rodríguez-Niño, Norberto, 2012. "Choques, instituciones laborales y desempleo en Colombia," Chapters, in: Arango-Thomas, Luis Eduardo & Hamann-Salcedo, Franz Alonso (ed.), El mercado de trabajo en Colombia : hechos, tendencias e instituciones, chapter 18, pages 753-794, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    5. Bella Gabriel Di & Grigoli Francesco & Ramírez Francisco, 2020. "Is unemployment on steroids in advanced economies?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 1-17, January.
    6. Holmlund, Bertil & Alexius, Annika, 2008. "Monetary Policy and Swedish Unemployment Fluctuations," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 2, pages 1-25.
    7. Sumera Arshad & Amajd Ali, 2016. "Trade-off between Inflation, Interest and Unemployment Rate of Pakistan: Revisited," Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 5(4), pages 193-209, December.
    8. Tafirenyika Sunde & Olusegun A. Akanbi, 2016. "Sources of unemployment in Namibia: an application of the structural VAR approach," International Journal of Sustainable Economy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 8(2), pages 125-143.
    9. Massimiliano Serati & Michela Martinoia, 2008. "The East-West migration in Europe: skill levels of migrants and their effects on the european labour market," LIUC Papers in Economics 208, Cattaneo University (LIUC).
    10. Andrea Vaona, 2015. "Anomalous empirical evidence on money long-run super-neutrality and the vertical long-run Phillips curve," Working Papers 17/2015, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    11. Tafirenyika SUNDE, 2015. "The effects of monetary policy on unemployment in Namibia," Journal of Economic and Social Thought, KSP Journals, vol. 2(4), pages 256-274, December.
    12. Monastiriotis, Vassilis, 2006. "Macro-determinants of UK regional unemployment and the role of employment flexibility," MPRA Paper 44, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. BATTISTI,Michele, 2006. "Assessing persistence in the Italian rate of unemployment in presence of structural breaks and regional asymmetries, 1977 to 2004," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 6(3).
    14. Massimiliano Serati & Gianni Amisano, 2003. "Unemployment and labour taxation: an econometric analysis," LIUC Papers in Economics 122, Cattaneo University (LIUC).
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    unemployment persistence; insiders-outsiders; hysteresis; structural VAR analysis; Bayesian inference;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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