IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ieb/wpaper/doc2012-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The ins and outs of unemployment in a two-tier labor market

Author

Listed:
  • José I. Silva

    (Universitat de Girona)

  • Javier Vázquez-Grenno

    (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB)

Abstract

This paper aims to shed some light on the dynamics of the Spanish labor market, using data from the Spanish Labor Force Survey for the period 1987 to 2010. We examine transition rates in a three-state model and compare our results with those reported for the UK and the US. Explicitly introducing the employment duality present in the Spanish labor market, we study labor market dynamics in a four-state model set-up. We also analyze the behavior of these rates within two sub-periods of recession and a further two sub-periods of boom. We provide evidence of the cyclicality of the transition rates using unconditional and conditional correlations. Finally, we compute the contribution of the different transitions to unemployment rate volatility. Our over-all conclusion points out that the employment duality is the key to understand the unemployment volatility and the functioning of the Spanish labor market.

Suggested Citation

  • José I. Silva & Javier Vázquez-Grenno, 2012. "The ins and outs of unemployment in a two-tier labor market," Working Papers 2012/17, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    • Handle: RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2012-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ieb.ub.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/2012-IEB-WorkingPaper-17.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gomes, Pedro, 2012. "Labour market flows: Facts from the United Kingdom," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 165-175.
    2. Sergi Jiménez-Martín & Franco Peracchi, 2002. "Sample attrition and labor force dynamics: Evidence from the Spanish labor force survey," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 79-102.
    3. Samuel Bentolila & Juan J. Dolado & Pierre Cahuc & Thomas Le Barbanchon, 2010. "Two-Tier Labor Markets in the Great Recession: France Vs. Spain," Working Papers wp2010_1009, CEMFI.
    4. Barbara Petrongolo & Christopher A. Pissarides, 2008. "The Ins and Outs of European Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 256-262, May.
    5. Samuel Bentolila & Juan Jose Dolado & Juan F. Jimeno, 2008. "Two-tier Employment Protection Reforms: The Spanish Experience," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 6(04), pages 49-56, December.
    6. Hector Sala & José I. Silva & Manuel Toledo, 2012. "Flexibility at the Margin and Labor Market Volatility in OECD Countries," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(3), pages 991-1017, September.
    7. Samuel Bentolila & Juan Jose Dolado & Juan F. Jimeno, 2008. "Two-tier Employment Protection Reforms: The Spanish Experience," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 6(4), pages 49-56, December.
    8. Michael W. L. Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Ayşegül Şahin, 2013. "Unemployment Dynamics in the OECD," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 530-548, May.
    9. 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.
    10. Inmaculada Cebrián & Gloria Moreno & Luis Toharia, 2011. "La estabilidad laboral y los programas de fomento de la contratación indefinida," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 198(3), pages 103-127, September.
    11. Silva, José I. & Vázquez-Grenno, Javier, 2013. "The ins and outs of unemployment in a two-tier labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 161-169.
    12. Gary Solon & Ryan Michaels & Michael W. L. Elsby, 2009. "The Ins and Outs of Cyclical Unemployment," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 84-110, January.
    13. Jennifer C. Smith, 2011. "The Ins and Outs of UK Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(552), pages 402-444, May.
    14. Héctor Sala & José I. Silva, 2009. "Flexibility at the margin and labour market volatility: The case of Spain," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 33(2), pages 145-178, May.
    15. Osuna Victoria, 2005. "The Effects of Reducing Firing Costs in Spain: A Lost Opportunity?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-29, May.
    16. Steven J. Davis & R. Jason Faberman & John Haltiwanger, 2006. "The Flow Approach to Labor Markets: New Data Sources and Micro-Macro Links," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 3-26, Summer.
    17. Mortensen, Dale & Pissarides, Christopher, 2011. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    18. Robert E. Hall, 2006. "Job Loss, Job Finding and Unemployment in the US Economy over the Past Fifty Years," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2005, Volume 20, pages 101-166, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Shigeru Fujita & Garey Ramey, 2009. "The Cyclicality Of Separation And Job Finding Rates," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(2), pages 415-430, May.
    20. 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.
    21. den Haan, Wouter J., 2000. "The comovement between output and prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 3-30, August.
    22. Oliver Jean Blanchard & Peter Diamond, 1990. "The Cyclical Behovior of the Gross Flows of U.S. Workers," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 21(2), pages 85-156.
    23. repec:ces:ifodic:v:6:y:2008:i:4:p:14567215 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Silva, José I. & Vázquez-Grenno, Javier, 2013. "The ins and outs of unemployment in a two-tier labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 161-169.
    2. Lin, Ching-Yang & Miyamoto, Hiroaki, 2012. "Gross worker flows and unemployment dynamics in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 44-61.
    3. Ronald Bachmann & Peggy Bechara & Anica Kramer & Sylvi Rzepka, 2015. "Labour market dynamics and worker heterogeneity during the Great Recession – Evidence from Europe," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-29, December.
    4. 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.
    5. Robert Dixon & G. C. Lim & Jan C. van Ours, 2015. "The effect of shocks to labour market flows on unemployment and participation rates," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(24), pages 2523-2539, May.
    6. Gomes, Pedro, 2012. "Labour market flows: Facts from the United Kingdom," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 165-175.
    7. Pedro Gomes, 2015. "The importance of frequency in estimating labour market transition rates," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-10, December.
    8. Simmons, Michael, 2023. "Job-to-job transitions, job finding and the ins of unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    9. Ponomareva, Natalia & Sheen, Jeffrey, 2013. "Australian labor market dynamics across the ages," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 453-463.
    10. Razzu, Giovanni & Singleton, Carl, 2016. "Gender and the business cycle: An analysis of labour markets in the US and UK," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB), pages 131-146.
    11. Hairault, Jean-Olivier & Zhutova, Anastasia, 2018. "The cyclicality of labor-market flows: A multiple-shock approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 150-172.
    12. Hie Ahn & James Hamilton, 2016. "Heterogeneity and Unemployment Dynamics," Working Papers id:11130, eSocialSciences.
    13. Fontaine, Idriss & Gálvez-Iniesta, Ismael & Gomes, Pedro & Vila-Martin, Diego, 2020. "Labour market flows: Accounting for the public sector," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    14. Hairault, Jean-Olivier & Le Barbanchon, Thomas & Sopraseuth, Thepthida, 2015. "The cyclicality of the separation and job finding rates in France," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 60-84.
    15. Jósef Sigurdsson, 2011. "Unemployment Dynamics and Cyclical Fluctuations in the Icelandic Labour Market," Economics wp56, Department of Economics, Central bank of Iceland.
    16. Davide Fiaschi & Cristina Tealdi, 2021. "A general methodology to measure labour market dynamics," Papers 2104.01097, arXiv.org.
    17. Zaveh, Fakhraldin, 2014. "Search, Rigidities and Unemployment Dynamics," EconStor Preprints 157661, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    18. Portugal, Pedro & Rua, António, 2020. "How the ins and outs shape differently the U.S. unemployment over time and across frequencies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    19. Ajax Moreira & Miguel N. Foguel & Carlos Henrique Corseuil, 2021. "The ins and outs of unemployment over different time horizons," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(5), pages 2533-2556, May.
    20. Nordmeier, Daniela, 2012. "Worker flows in Germany: Inspecting the time aggregation bias," IAB-Discussion Paper 201212, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Job finding rate; job separation rate; unemployment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers

    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:ieb:wpaper:doc2012-17. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iebubes.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.