IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v91y2001i1p187-207.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Hides Behind an Unemployment Rate: Comparing Portuguese and U.S. Labor Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Pedro Portugal
  • Olivier Blanchard

Abstract

Behind similar unemployment rates in the United States and Portugal hide two very different labor markets. Unemployment duration is three times longer in Portugal than in the United States. Symmetrically, flows of workers into unemployment are three times lower in Portugal. These lower flows come in roughly equal proportions from lower job creation and destruction, and from lower worker flows given job creation and destruction. A plausible explanation is high employment protection in Portugal. High employment protection makes economies more sclerotic; but because it affects unemployment duration and worker flows in opposite directions, the effect on unemployment is ambiguous.

Suggested Citation

  • Pedro Portugal & Olivier Blanchard, 2001. "What Hides Behind an Unemployment Rate: Comparing Portuguese and U.S. Labor Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 187-207, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:91:y:2001:i:1:p:187-207
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.91.1.187
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.91.1.187
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1990. "Job security, employment and wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 851-879, June.
    2. Bertola, Giuseppe & Rogerson, Richard, 1997. "Institutions and labor reallocation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1147-1171, June.
    3. Boeri, Tito, 1999. "Enforcement of employment security regulations, on-the-job search and unemployment duration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 65-89, January.
    4. Mortensen, Dale & Pissarides, Christopher, 2011. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    5. Blanchard, Olivier & Jimeno, Juan F, 1995. "Structural Unemployment: Spain versus Portugal," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 212-218, May.
    6. Christopher L. Foote, 1998. "Trend Employment Growth and the Bunching of Job Creation and Destruction," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 113(3), pages 809-834.
    7. Cabrales, Antonio & Hopenhayn, Hugo A., 1997. "Labor-market flexibility and aggregate employment volatility," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 189-228, June.
    8. J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    9. Steven J. Davis & John C. Haltiwanger & Scott Schuh, 1998. "Job Creation and Destruction," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262540932, December.
    10. Olympia Bover & Pilar García-Perea & Pedro Portugal, 2000. "Labour market outliers: Lessons from Portugal and Spain," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 15(31), pages 380-428.
    11. Edward P. Lazear, 1990. "Job Security Provisions and Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 105(3), pages 699-726.
    12. Jonathan S. Leonard, 1986. "In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time: The Extent of Frictional and Structural Unemployment," NBER Working Papers 1979, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Oliver Jean Blanchard & Peter Diamond, 1990. "The Cyclical Behovior of the Gross Flows of U.S. Workers," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 21(2), pages 85-156.
    14. Patricia M. Anderson & Bruce D. Meyer, 1994. "The Extent and Consequences of Job Turnover," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 25(1994 Micr), pages 177-248.
    15. Stephen Nickell, 1997. "Unemployment and Labor Market Rigidities: Europe versus North America," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 55-74, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Olivier Blanchard & Pedro Portugal, 1998. "What Hides Behind an Umemployment Rate: Comparing Portuguese and U.S. Unemployment," NBER Working Papers 6636, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Ahrens, Steffen & Wesselbaum, Dennis, 2009. "On the introduction of firing costs," Kiel Working Papers 1559, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    3. Yu‐Fu Chen & Dennis Snower & Gylfi Zoega, 2003. "Labour‐market Institutions and Macroeconomic Shocks," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 17(2), pages 247-270, June.
    4. Alonso-Borrego, César & Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Galdon-Sanchez, Jose Enrique, 2004. "Evaluating Labor Market Reforms: A General Equilibrium Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 1129, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Jonas D. M. Fisher & Jeffrey R. Campbell, 2000. "Aggregate Employment Fluctuations with Microeconomic Asymmetries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1323-1345, December.
    6. Heyman, Fredrik, 2001. "Wage Dispersion and Allocation of Jobs," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 479, Stockholm School of Economics.
    7. Arai, Mahmood & Heyman, Fredrik, 2000. "Permanent and Temporary Labour: Job and Worker Flows in Sweden, 1989-1998," Working Papers 71, National Institute of Economic Research.
    8. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Ricardo Lagos, 2007. "A Model of Job and Worker Flows," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(5), pages 770-819, October.
    9. Paolo Naticchioni & Emiliano Rustichelli & Antonio Scialà, 2003. "Employment protection and regional worker flows in Italy: an assessment of the theoretical predictions," Working Papers - Dipartimento di Economia 1-DEISFOL, Dipartimento di Economia, Sapienza University of Rome, revised 2003.
    10. Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski & Przemysław Włodarczyk, 2012. "Wpływ prawnej ochrony zatrudnienia na rynek pracy w warunkach negatywnego szoku ekonomicznego," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 11-12, pages 1-23.
    11. Ronald Bachmann & Rahel Felder, 2021. "Labour market transitions, shocks and institutions in turbulent times: a cross-country analysis," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 329-352, May.
    12. Ravi Balakrishnan, 2001. "The interaction of firing costs and on-the-job search: an application of a search theoretic model to the Spanish labour market," Working Papers 0102, Banco de España.
    13. Alejandro Micco & Carmen Pagés-Serra, 2004. "Protección del empleo y flujo bruto de puestos de trabajo: un enfoque de diferencias en diferencias," Research Department Publications 4366, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    14. Diego Daruich & Sabrina Di Addario & Raffaele Saggio, 2020. "The Effects of Partial Employment Protection Reforms: Evidence from Italy," Development Working Papers 463, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano, revised 27 Apr 2020.
    15. Peter Pisár & Ján Huňady & Erika Ľapinová, 2018. "Work Flexibility in Developed Countries: Economic Context and Policy Implications," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2018(6), pages 684-703.
    16. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2711-2805 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Floro Ernesto Caroleo, 2000. "Le politiche per l'occupazione in Europa: una tassonomia istituzionale," STUDI ECONOMICI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2000(71).
    18. Alejandro Micco & Carmen Pagés-Serra, 2004. "Employment Protection and Gross Job Flows: A Differences-in-Differences Approach," Research Department Publications 4365, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    19. repec:prg:jnlpep:v:preprint:id:688:p:1-20 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Tito Boeri & Giuseppe Nicoletti & Stefano Scarpetta, "undated". "Regulation and Labour Market Performance," Working Papers 158, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    21. Kugler, Adriana & Saint-Paul, Gilles, 2000. "Hiring and Firing Costs, Adverse Selection and Long-term Unemployment," IZA Discussion Papers 134, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    22. Boeri, Tito & Jimeno, Juan F., 2005. "The effects of employment protection: Learning from variable enforcement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(8), pages 2057-2077, November.

    More about this item

    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

    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:aea:aecrev:v:91:y:2001:i:1:p:187-207. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.