IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eej/eeconj/v15y1989i3p177-187.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Persistence Effects in Labor Force Participation

Author

Listed:
  • Robert S. Gay

    (Morgan Stanley)

  • William L. Wascher

    (Federal Reserve System)

Abstract

This paper examines empirically two facets of labor force participation dynamics that imply quite different interpretations of labor market fluctuations. The first, which underlies equilibrium business cycle models, is that workers time their participation to coincide with periods of high real wages. The second, which implies the existence of involuntary unemployment during cyclical downturns, is that workers' current labor force status is heavily influenced by their work experience in the recent past. The authors' results suggest that these persistence effects are a key feature of labor force behavior, particularly for teenagers, adult women, and older men. In contrast, very little evidence could be found to support the intertemporal substitution hypothesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert S. Gay & William L. Wascher, 1989. "Persistence Effects in Labor Force Participation," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 177-187, Jul-Sep.
    • Handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:15:y:1989:i:3:p:177-187
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/eej/Archive/Volume15/V15N3P177_187.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Parsons, Donald O, 1980. "The Decline in Male Labor Force Participation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 117-134, February.
    2. Jacob Mincer & Solomon Polachek, 1974. "Family Investments in Human Capital: Earnings of Women," NBER Chapters, in: Marriage, Family, Human Capital, and Fertility, pages 76-110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Gilbert Ghez & Gary S. Becker, 1975. "The Allocation of Time and Goods over the Life Cycle," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number ghez75-1, July.
    4. Jonathan S. Leonard, 1979. "The Social Security Disability Program and Labor Force Participation," NBER Working Papers 0392, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Barro, Robert J, 1978. "Unanticipated Money, Output, and the Price Level in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(4), pages 549-580, August.
    6. Heckman, James J & Willis, Robert J, 1977. "A Beta-logistic Model for the Analysis of Sequential Labor Force Participation by Married Women," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(1), pages 27-58, February.
    7. Gilbert Ghez & Gary S. Becker, 1975. "The Allocation of Goods Over the Life Cycle," NBER Chapters, in: The Allocation of Time and Goods over the Life Cycle, pages 46-82, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Haveman, Robert H & Wolfe, Barbara L, 1984. "The Decline in Male Labor Force Participation: Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(3), pages 532-541, June.
    9. Gilbert Ghez & Gary S. Becker, 1975. "The Allocation of Time Over the Life Cycle," NBER Chapters, in: The Allocation of Time and Goods over the Life Cycle, pages 83-132, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Lucas, Robert E, Jr & Rapping, Leonard A, 1969. "Real Wages, Employment, and Inflation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(5), pages 721-754, Sept./Oct.
    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. Julie L. Hotchkiss & John C. Robertson, 2006. "Asymmetric labor force participation decisions over the business cycle: evidence from U.S. microdata," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2006-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

    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. Lee A. Lillard, 1977. "Estimation of Permanent and Transitory Response Functions in Panels Data: A Dynamic Labor Supply Model," NBER Working Papers 0185, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:3-102 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. D. E. Ault & G. L. Rutman*, 1985. "The Rural African and Gold Mining in Southern Africa 1976–1980," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 53(1), pages 1-16, March.
    4. Luigi Pistaferri, 2003. "Anticipated and Unanticipated Wage Changes, Wage Risk, and Intertemporal Labor Supply," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(3), pages 729-754, July.
    5. Lillard, Lee A & Willis, Robert J, 1978. "Dynamic Aspects of Earning Mobility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(5), pages 985-1012, September.
    6. Mulligan Casey B, 2001. "Aggregate Implications of Indivisible Labor," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-35, April.
    7. Abowd, John M & Card, David, 1987. "Intertemporal Labor Supply and Long-term Employment Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 50-68, March.
    8. Rogerson, Richard & Wallenius, Johanna, 2009. "Micro and macro elasticities in a life cycle model with taxes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(6), pages 2277-2292, November.
    9. Casey B. Mulligan, 1999. "Substitution over Time: Another Look at Life-Cycle Labor Supply," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1998, volume 13, pages 75-152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Chang, Yongsung, 2000. "Wages, business cycles, and comparative advantage," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 143-171, August.
    11. Lee, Chul-In, 2008. "On-the-job human capital investment and intertemporal substitution: New evidence on intertemporal substitution elasticity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(10), pages 3350-3375, October.
    12. Kim B. Clark & Lawrence H. Summers, 1982. "Labour Force Participation: Timing and Persistence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(5), pages 825-844.
    13. Finn E. Kydland & Edward C. Prescott, 1996. "The Computational Experiment: An Econometric Tool," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 69-85, Winter.
    14. Yongsung Chang & Sun-Bin Kim, 2006. "From Individual To Aggregate Labor Supply: A Quantitative Analysis Based On A Heterogeneous Agent Macroeconomy ," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(1), pages 1-27, February.
    15. Thomas E. MaCurdy, 1980. "An Empirical Model of Labor Supply in a Life Cycle Setting," NBER Working Papers 0421, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2015. "Welfare gains from the adoption of proportional taxation in a general-equilibrium model with a grey economy: the case of Bulgaria's 2008 flat tax reform," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 48(2), pages 169-185.
    17. de la Croix, David & Gosseries, Axel, 2012. "The natalist bias of pollution control," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 271-287.
    18. Feigenbaum, James, 2008. "Can mortality risk explain the consumption hump?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 844-872, September.
    19. Aydilek, Asiye, 2016. "The allocation of time and puzzling profiles of the elderly," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 515-526.
    20. Valerie A. Ramey & Neville Francis, 2009. "A Century of Work and Leisure," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 189-224, July.
    21. Yongsung Chang & Mark Bils, 2002. "Cyclical Movements in Hours and Effort under Sticky Wages," Macroeconomics 0204004, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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:eej:eeconj:v:15:y:1989:i:3:p:177-187. 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: Victor Matheson, College of the Holy Cross (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaa1ea.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.