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Individuals' Unemployment Durations over the Business Cycle

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  • Kalwij, Adriaan

    (Utrecht School of Economics)

Abstract

Using a large panel of administrative records this study confirms the predictions of the ranking model of Blanchard and Diamond (1994) that an individual’s probability of leaving unemployment decreases with unemployment duration and increases with economic growth. However, the ranking model of Blanchard and Diamond (1994) makes the further prediction that negative genuine duration dependence will be stronger the more depressed the labour market. In conflict with this prediction this study provides persuasive empirical evidence that the pattern of negative genuine duration dependence does not change over the business cycle. Moreover it is shown that the finding in previous studies that negative genuine duration dependence becomes stronger the more depressed the labour market arises from failure to control for cyclical fluctuations in the composition of the newly unemployed. This finding carries a strong warning for policy assessment: unless controlled for cyclical fluctuations in the composition of the newly unemployed an evaluation of a policy designed to get the long-term unemployed into work will be biased towards a success in times of high economic growth and towards a failure in times of low economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Kalwij, Adriaan, 2001. "Individuals' Unemployment Durations over the Business Cycle," IZA Discussion Papers 369, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp369
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Muriel Dejemeppe & Yves Saks, 2002. "A New Light into Regional Unemployment Disparities in Belgium : Longitudinal Analysis of Grouped Duration Data," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2002019, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    2. Knut Roed & Tao Zhang, 2003. "Does Unemployment Compensation Affect Unemployment Duration?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 190-206, January.
    3. Adriaan Kalwij, 2010. "Unemployment durations and the pattern of duration dependence over the business cycle of British males," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 429-456, April.
    4. Hélène Turon, 2003. "Inflow Composition, Duration Dependence and their Impact on the Unemployment Outflow Rate," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(1), pages 31-47, February.
    5. 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.
    6. Turon, Hélène, 2003. "Separability of Duration Dependence and Unobserved Heterogeneity," IZA Discussion Papers 754, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment; duration model; business cycles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • C41 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Duration Analysis; Optimal Timing Strategies
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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