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Accounting for unemployment in the Great Recession : nonparticipation matters

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  • Marianna Kudlyak
  • Felipe Schwartzman

Abstract

We conduct an accounting exercise of the role of worker flows between unemployment, employment, and labor force nonparticipation in the dynamics of the aggregate unemployment rate across four recent recessions: 1982-1983, 1990-1991, 2001, and 2007-2009 (the "Great Recession"). We show that, whereas during earlier recessions it was sufficient to examine the flows between employment and unemployment to account for the dynamics of the unemployment rate, this was not true in the Great Recession. The increased importance of the flows between nonparticipation and unemployment is documented across all age and gender groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Marianna Kudlyak & Felipe Schwartzman, 2012. "Accounting for unemployment in the Great Recession : nonparticipation matters," Working Paper 12-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedrwp:12-04
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Elsby, Michael & Hobijn, Bart & Sahin, Aysegül, 2013. "On the Importance of the Participation Margin for Market Fluctuations," Working Paper Series 2013-05, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    2. Christopher L. Foote & Richard W. Ryan, 2015. "Labor-Market Polarization over the Business Cycle," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 371-413.
    3. 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.
    4. Maurizio Baussola & Chiara Mussida, 2014. "Transitions in the Labour Market: Discouragement Effect and Individual Characteristics," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(2), pages 209-232, June.
    5. Kudlyak, Marianna, 2013. "A Cohort Model of Labor Force Participation," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue 1Q, pages 25-43.
    6. Diamond, Peter A., 2013. "Structural unemployment," Public Policy Brief, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    7. Christopher J. Erceg & Andrew T. Levin, 2014. "Labor Force Participation and Monetary Policy in the Wake of the Great Recession," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(S2), pages 3-49, October.
    8. Peter Diamond, 2013. "Cyclical Unemployment, Structural Unemployment," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(3), pages 410-455, August.
    9. Julie L. Hotchkiss & M. Melinda Pitts & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2012. "A closer look at nonparticipants during and after the Great Recession," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2012-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    10. 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.

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    Keywords

    Business cycles ; Unemployment ; Labor market;

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