IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedker/00008.html

The shadow labor supply and its implications for the unemployment rate

Author

Listed:
  • Troy Davig
  • Jose Mustre-del-Rio

Abstract

In the wake of the Great Recession there has been a sharp rise in the number of people who indicate they want a job, but are not actively seeking one. This group, on the periphery of the labor market, may be viewed as a \\"shadow labor supply.\\" Since they are not actively seeking work, they are not counted by the government as unemployed and not considered part of the labor force. But if many start seeking jobs as the economy recovers, the unemployment rate could rise or at least slow its descent. Davig and Mustre-del-Ro analyze possible flow rates from this group and other non-employed groups into employment or into official unemployment. They find the shadow labor supply will likely affect the unemployment rate only modestly, but potential variation in labor market participation among the entire non-employed population may have greater impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Troy Davig & Jose Mustre-del-Rio, 2013. "The shadow labor supply and its implications for the unemployment rate," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q III, pages 5-29.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedker:00008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.kansascityfed.org/documents/1096/2013-The%20Shadow%20Labor%20Supply%20and%20Its%20Implications%20for%20the%20Unemployment%20Rate.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Ayşegül Şahin, 2013. "On the Importance of the Participation Margin for Market Fluctuations," Working Paper Series 2013-05, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    2. Regis Barnichon & Christopher J. Nekarda, 2012. "The Ins and Outs of Forecasting Unemployment: Using Labor Force Flows to Forecast the Labor Market," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 43(2 (Fall)), pages 83-131.
    3. Ralph E. Smith & Jean E. Vanski & Charles C. Holt, 1974. "Recession and the Employment of Demographic Groups," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 5(3), pages 737-760.
    4. 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.
    5. Kimmel, Jean & Kniesner, Thomas J., 1998. "New evidence on labor supply:: Employment versus hours elasticities by sex and marital status," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 289-301, July.
    6. Robert Shimer, 2012. "Reassessing the Ins and Outs of Unemployment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(2), pages 127-148, April.
    7. Abowd, John M & Zellner, Arnold, 1985. "Estimating Gross Labor-Force Flows," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(3), pages 254-283, June.
    8. Willem Van Zandweghe, 2012. "Interpreting the recent decline in labor force participation," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 97(Q I), pages 5-34.
    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. 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.
    2. Regis Barnichon & Andrew Figura, 2016. "Declining Desire to Work and Downward Trends in Unemployment and Participation," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 449-494.
    3. Hie Joo Ahn & Bart Hobijn & Ayşegül Şahin, 2023. "The Dual U.S. Labor Market Uncovered," NBER Working Papers 31241, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Marianna Kudlyak & Fabian Lange, 2014. "Measuring Heterogeneity in Job Finding Rates Among the Nonemployed Using Labor Force Status Histories," Working Paper 14-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    5. Das, Tirthatanmoy & Polachek, Solomon W., 2017. "Estimating labor force joiners and leavers using a heterogeneity augmented two-tier stochastic frontier," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 199(2), pages 156-172.
    6. Carl Singleton, 2018. "Long‐Term Unemployment and the Great Recession: Evidence from UK Stocks and Flows," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 65(2), pages 105-126, May.
    7. 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.
    8. Elsby, Michael W.L. & Hobijn, Bart & Şahin, Ayşegül, 2015. "On the importance of the participation margin for labor market fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 64-82.
    9. Shigeru Fujita, 2011. "Dynamics of worker flows and vacancies: evidence from the sign restriction approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 89-121, January/F.
    10. Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel & Lalé, Etienne, 2020. "The ins and outs of involuntary part-time employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    11. Y. Saks, 2016. "Socio-economic transitions on the labour market : a European benchmarking exercise," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue iii, pages 41-58, December.
    12. Madeira, Carlos, 2026. "Identification of earnings dynamics using rotating samples over short periods: the case of Chile," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    13. Philip Jung & Moritz Kuhn, 2019. "Earnings Losses and Labor Mobility Over the Life Cycle," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 678-724.
    14. Miyamoto, Hiroaki, 2011. "Cyclical behavior of unemployment and job vacancies in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 214-225.
    15. Eduardo Zylberstajn & André Portela Souza, 2016. "The Ins And Outs Of Unemployment In A Dual Labor Market," Anais do XLIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 43rd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 227, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    16. Richard K. Crump & Stefano Eusepi & Marc Giannoni & Aysegul Sahin, 2019. "A Unified Approach to Measuring u," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 50(1 (Spring), pages 143-238.
    17. Jed Armstrong & Özer Karagedikli, 2017. "The role of non-participants in labour market dynamics," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Analytical Notes series AN2017/01, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    18. Reinout De Bock, 2007. "Investment-Specific Technology Shocks and Labor Market Frictions," Working Paper Research 108, National Bank of Belgium.
    19. Hie Joo Ahn & James Hamilton, 2022. "Measuring Labor-Force Participation and the Incidence and Duration of Unemployment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 44, pages 1-32, April.
    20. Vladislav Flek & Martina Mysíková, 2015. "Uneployment Dynamics in Central Europe: A Labour Flow Approach," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2015(1), pages 73-87.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:fedker:00008. 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: Kira Lillard (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbkcus.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.