IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Whatever happened to the business cycle? a Bayesian analysis of jobless recoveries

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Kristie M. Engemann
  • Michael T. Owyang

Abstract

During the typical recovery from U.S. post-War period economic downturns, employment recovers to its pre-recession level within months of the output trough. However, during the last two recoveries, employment has taken up to two years to achieve its pre-recession benchmark. We propose a formal empirical model of business cycles with recovery periods to demonstrate that the last two recoveries have been statistically different from previous experiences. We find that this difference can be attributed to a shift in the speed of transition between business cycle regimes. Moreover, we find this shift results from both durable and non-durable manufacturing sectors losing their cyclical characteristics. We argue that this finding of acyclicality in post-1980 manufacturing sectors is consistent with previous hypotheses (e.g., improved inventory management) regarding the reduction in macroeconomic volatility over the same period. These results suggest a link between the two phenomena, which have heretofore been studied separately.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2007/2007-013.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in its series Working Papers with number 2007-013.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: 2007
Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2007-013
Contact details of provider: Postal:
P.O. Box 442, St. Louis, MO 63166

Fax: (314)444-8753
Web page: http://www.stlouisfed.org/

More information through EDIRC

Order Information: Email:


Keywords: Business cycles ; Labor market;

Other versions of this item:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Álvaro Escribano & Oscar Jordá, 2001. "Testing nonlinearity: Decision rules for selecting between logistic and exponential STAR models," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 193-209.
  2. Daniel J. Vine & Valerie A. Ramey, 2006. "Declining Volatility in the U.S. Automobile Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1876-1889, December.
  3. Owyang, Michael T. & Piger, Jeremy & Wall, Howard J., 2008. "A state-level analysis of the Great Moderation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 578-589, November.
  4. Stacey L. Schreft & Aarti Singh, 2003. "A closer look at jobless recoveries," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q II, pages 45-73.
  5. Kathryn Koenders & Richard Rogerson, 2005. "Organizational dynamics over the business cycle: a view on jobless recoveries," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Jul, pages 555-580.
  6. Jeremy Piger & James Morley & Chang-Jin Kim, 2005. "Nonlinearity and the permanent effects of recessions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 291-309.
  7. Stacey L. Schreft & Aarti Singh & Ashley Hodgson, 2005. "Jobless recoveries and the wait-and-see hypothesis," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q IV, pages 81-99.
  8. Holmes, Mark J. & Silverstone, Brian, 2006. "Okun's law, asymmetries and jobless recoveries in the United States: A Markov-switching approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 293-299, August.
  9. Margaret M. McConnell & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2000. "Output fluctuations in the United States: what has changed since the early 1980s?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
  10. Arthur F. Burns & Wesley C. Mitchell, 1946. "Measuring Business Cycles," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number burn46-1, June.
  11. Hedibert F. Lopes & Esther Salazar, 2006. "Bayesian Model Uncertainty In Smooth Transition Autoregressions," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 99-117, 01.
  12. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
  13. Chib S. & Jeliazkov I., 2001. "Marginal Likelihood From the Metropolis-Hastings Output," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 96, pages 270-281, March.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Faberman, R. Jason, 2017. "Job flows, jobless recoveries, and the Great Moderation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 152-170.
  2. Kevin x.d. Huang & Jie Chen & Zhe Li & Jianfei Sun, 2014. "Financial Conditions and Slow Recoveries," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 14-00004, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
  3. Barnett, Alina & Mumtaz, Haroon & Theodoridis, Konstantinos, 2014. "Forecasting UK GDP growth and inflation under structural change. A comparison of models with time-varying parameters," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 129-143.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2007-013. 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: (Anna Xiao)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.