IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedfer/y1998p29-40n3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Changes in the structure and duration of U.S. unemployment, 1967-1998

Author

Listed:
  • Robert G. Valletta

Abstract

The unemployment rate is determined by the incidence and duration of unemployment spells. In this paper, I examine the time-series properties of unemployment incidence by reason and the duration of a typical unemployment spell. In line with earlier research, I find strong countercyclicality in unemployment. However, I also uncover an upward trend in duration that is entirely attributable to rising incidence and duration of permanent job loss. These changes in the structure and duration of unemployment have various policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert G. Valletta, 1998. "Changes in the structure and duration of U.S. unemployment, 1967-1998," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 29-40.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfer:y:1998:p:29-40:n:3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/29-40.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/economic-review-federal-reserve-bank-san-francisco-869/1998-632630/changes-structure-duration-us-unemployment-1967-1998-643626
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/frbsfreview/rev_frbsf_1998no3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Flinn, Christopher J & Heckman, James J, 1983. "Are Unemployment and Out of the Labor Force Behaviorally Distinct Labor Force States?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 28-42, January.
    2. Duca, John V., 1996. "Inflation, unemployment, and duration," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 293-298, September.
    3. William J. Baumol & Edward N. Wolff, 1998. "Speed of Technical Progress and Length of the Average Interjob Period," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_237, Levy Economics Institute.
    4. Valletta, Robert G, 1999. "Declining Job Security," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(4), pages 170-197, October.
    5. Akerlof, George A & Main, Brian G M, 1980. "Unemployment Spells and Unemployment Experience," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(5), pages 885-893, December.
    6. Stephen W. Salant, 1977. "Search Theory and Duration Data: A Theory of Sorts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 91(1), pages 39-57.
    7. 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.
    8. Whitney Newey & Kenneth West, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    9. Lawrence F. Katz & Bruce D. Meyer, 1990. "Unemployment Insurance, Recall Expectations, and Unemployment Outcomes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(4), pages 973-1002.
    10. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Peter Diamond, 1994. "Ranking, Unemployment Duration, and Wages," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 417-434.
    11. Miles Corak & Andrew Heisz, 1996. "Alternative Measures Of The Average Duration Of Unemployment," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 42(1), pages 63-74, March.
    12. Michael Baker & Miles Corak & Andrew Heisz, 1998. "The Labour Market Dynamics of Unemployment Rates in Canada and the United States," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 24(s1), pages 72-89, February.
    13. Kim B. Clark & Lawrence H. Summers, 1979. "Labor Market Dynamics and Unemployemnt: A Reconsideration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 10(1), pages 13-72.
    14. Kevin M. Murphy & Robert H. Topel, 1987. "The Evolution of Unemployment in the United States: 1968–1985," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1987, Volume 2, pages 11-68, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Durbin, J, 1970. "Testing for Serial Correlation in Least-Squares Regression When Some of the Regressors are Lagged Dependent Variables," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 38(3), pages 410-421, May.
    16. Baker, Michael, 1992. "Unemployment Duration: Compositional Effects and Cyclical Variability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 313-321, March.
    17. George L. Perry, 1970. "Changing Labor Markets and Inflation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 1(3), pages 411-448.
    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. Patrick Francois & Joanne Roberts, 2003. "Contracting Productivity Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(1), pages 59-85.
    2. Mukoyama, Toshihiko & Sahin, Aysegl, 2009. "Why did the average duration of unemployment become so much longer?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 200-209, March.
    3. Alan B. Krueger & Alexandre Mas & Xiaotong Niu, 2017. "The Evolution of Rotation Group Bias: Will the Real Unemployment Rate Please Stand Up?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(2), pages 258-264, May.
    4. Thomas B. King, 2005. "Labor productivity and job-market flows: trends, cycles, and correlations," Supervisory Policy Analysis Working Papers 2005-04, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    5. Robert G. Valletta, 2002. "Recent trends in unemployment duration," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue nov22.
    6. Pedro Portugal & José Ferreira Machado, 2006. "U.S. Unemployment Duration: Has Long Become Longer or Short Become Shorter?," Working Papers w200613, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.

    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. Heisz, Andrew & Baker, Michael & Corak, Miles, 1996. "Unemployment in the Stock and Flow," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 1997097e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    2. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:921-999 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Mukoyama, Toshihiko & Sahin, Aysegl, 2009. "Why did the average duration of unemployment become so much longer?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 200-209, March.
    4. Darby, Michael R & Haltiwanger, John C & Plant, Mark W, 1985. "Unemployment Rate Dynamics and Persistent Unemployment under Rational Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 614-637, September.
    5. Régis Barnichon & Andrew Figura, 2013. "Declining labor force attachment and downward trends in unemployment and participation," Economics Working Papers 1397, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    6. James M. Poterba & Lawrence H. Summers, 1984. "Adjusting the Gross Changes Data: Implications for Labor Market Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 1436, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Kory Kroft & Fabian Lange & Matthew J. Notowidigdo & Lawrence F. Katz, 2016. "Long-Term Unemployment and the Great Recession: The Role of Composition, Duration Dependence, and Nonparticipation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 7-54.
    8. Bart Cockx & Muriel Dejemeppe, 2005. "Duration dependence in the exit rate out of unemployment in Belgium. Is it true or spurious?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(1), pages 1-23, January.
    9. Anthony Shorrocks, 2009. "Spell incidence, spell duration and the measurement of unemployment," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 7(3), pages 295-310, September.
    10. Castro, Rui & Lange, Fabian & Poschke, Markus, 2024. "Labour force transitions," CLEF Working Paper Series 78, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    11. Kalwij, Adriaan, 2001. "Individuals' Unemployment Experiences: Heterogeneity and Business Cycle Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 370, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Mark B. Stewart, 2007. "The interrelated dynamics of unemployment and low-wage employment," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(3), pages 511-531.
    13. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:849-919 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Michael W. L. Elsby & Ryan Michaels & David Ratner, 2015. "The Beveridge Curve: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(3), pages 571-630, September.
    15. Stephen Bazen & Xavier Joutard & Mouhamadou M. Niang, 2012. "The Duration-Based Measurement of Unemployment: Estimation Issues and an Application to Male-Female Unemployment Differences in France," Working Papers halshs-00793056, HAL.
    16. Stephen Bazen & Xavier Joutard & Mouhamadou Niang, 2014. "The measurement of unemployment using completed durations: evidence on the gender gap in unemployment in France," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 12(4), pages 517-534, December.
    17. Stephen R. G. Jones & Craig Riddell, 2000. "The Dynamics of US Labor Force Attachment," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0011, Econometric Society.
    18. Campolieti, Michele, 2009. "An Analysis of Unemployment Incidence and Duration: Some New Evidence from Canada," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2009-14, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 02 Feb 2009.
    19. Hyclak, Thomas & Ohn, Jonathan, 2001. "Wage inflation and the post-1991 duration puzzle," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 97-104, October.
    20. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3085-3139 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Abbring, Jaap H. & Berg, Gerard J. van den & Ours, Jan C. van, 1997. "Business cycles and compositional variation in U.S. unemployment," Serie Research Memoranda 0020, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    22. Yolanda Kodrzycki, 2007. "Using unexpected recalls to examine the long-term earnings effects of job displacement," Working Papers 07-2, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    23. repec:wyi:journl:002087 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. David Gray & Gilles Grenier, 1998. "Jobless Durations of Displaced Workers: A Comparison of Canada and the United States," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 24(s1), pages 152-169, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment;

    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:fip:fedfer:y:1998:p:29-40:n:3. 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: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.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.