IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mlb/wpaper/1033.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

State & Territory Beveridge Curvesand the National Equilibrium Unemployment Rate

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Dixon
  • John Freebairn
  • Emayenesh Seyoum-Tegegn

Abstract

Shifts in the ‘national’ equilibrium rate of unemployment relevant for determining national economic policy settings, we contend, are those shifts which are ‘common across states & territories’. One way to identify these is to identify the common shifts in state and territory Beveridge curves in Australia over time. When we do this we recover a national equilibrium unemployment rate series which is similar to, but at the same time different enough from, other measures to make it interesting. In our view it is this, or some other “national” equilibrium rate series, a series which ‘by construction’ will capture national (nation-wide) factors based on common shocks or common trends across states and territories, that should be the basis for policy and not an ‘aggregate series’ which does not do this. We estimate the value of the equilibrium unemployment rate for 2006 to be 3.7%, which may be compared with the actual unemployment rate for that year of 4.8%, indicating that even as recently as 2006 the actual rate was at least 1 percentage point above the equilibrium rate

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Dixon & John Freebairn & Emayenesh Seyoum-Tegegn, 2008. "State & Territory Beveridge Curvesand the National Equilibrium Unemployment Rate," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1033, The University of Melbourne.
  • Handle: RePEc:mlb:wpaper:1033
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/802724/1033.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Crosby & Nilss Olekalns, 1998. "Inflation, Unemployment and the NAIRU in Australia," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 31(2), pages 117-129, June.
    2. Gruen, David & Pagan, Adrian & Thompson, Christopher, 1999. "The Phillips curve in Australia," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 223-258, October.
    3. Christopher A. Pissarides & Barbara Petrongolo, 2001. "Looking into the Black Box: A Survey of the Matching Function," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 390-431, June.
    4. Robert Dixon & John Freebairn & Guay Lim, 2007. "Time-varying equilibrium rates of unemployment: an analysis with Australian data," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 10(4), pages 205-225.
    5. David Shepherd & Robert Dixon, 2002. "The Relationship Between Regional and National Unemployment," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(5), pages 469-480.
    6. Debelle, Guy & Vickery, James, 1998. "Is the Phillips Curve a Curve? Some Evidence and Implications for Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 74(227), pages 384-398, December.
    7. Kennedy, Peter E, 1981. "Estimation with Correctly Interpreted Dummy Variables in Semilogarithmic Equations [The Interpretation of Dummy Variables in Semilogarithmic Equations]," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 801-801, September.
    8. Shimer Robert & Smith Lones, 2001. "Matching, Search, and Heterogeneity," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-18, April.
    9. Nicolaas Groenewold, 2003. "Long-Run Shifts of the Beveridge Curve and the Frictional Unemployment Rate in Australia," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 6(1), pages 65-82, March.
    10. Jerome Fahrer & Andrew Pease, 1993. "The Unemployment‐Vacancy Relationship in Australia," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 26(4), pages 43-57, October.
    11. Bent Hansen, 1970. "Excess Demand, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Wages," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(1), pages 1-23.
    12. Guy Debelle & James Vickery, 1998. "The Macroeconomics of Australian Unemployment," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Guy Debelle & Jeff Borland (ed.),Unemployment and the Australian Labour Market, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    13. Arthur S. Goldberger, 1970. "On the Statistical Analysis of Identities: Comment," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 52(1), pages 154-155.
    14. J. N. Lye & I. M. McDonald & H. Sibly, 2001. "An Estimate of the Range of Equilibrium Rates of Unemployment for Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 77(236), pages 35-50, March.
    15. Borsch-Supan, Axel H, 1991. "Panel Data Analysis of the Beveridge Curve: Is There a Macroeconomic Relation between the Rate of Unemployment and the Vacancy Rate?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 58(231), pages 279-297, August.
    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. Robert Dixon & John Freebairn & Guay Lim, 2007. "Time-varying equilibrium rates of unemployment: an analysis with Australian data," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 10(4), pages 205-225.
    2. Marika Karanassou & Hector Sala, 2010. "Labour Market Dynamics in Australia: What Drives Unemployment?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(273), pages 185-209, June.
    3. G.C. Lim & Robert Dixon & Sarantis Tsiaplias, 2009. "Phillips Curve and the Equilibrium Unemployment Rate," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 85(271), pages 371-382, December.
    4. Jeff Borland & Ian McDonald, 2000. "Labour Market Models of Unemployment in Australia," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2000n15, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    5. Marika Karanassou & Hector Sala, 2010. "Labour Market Dynamics in Australia: What Drives Unemployment?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(273), pages 185-209, June.
    6. Reinhold Kosfeld & Christian Dreger & Hans-Friedrich Eckey, 2008. "On the stability of the German Beveridge curve: a spatial econometric perspective," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 42(4), pages 967-986, December.
    7. Paul Oslington, 2012. "General Equilibrium: Theory and Evidence," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(282), pages 446-448, September.
    8. Kasrin Zein & Lang Guenter, 2013. "Estimating the Beveridge Curve of Egypt: An Econometric Study for the Period 2004 to 2010," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 8(3), pages 1-16, January.
    9. Robert Dixon & Guay Lim, 2016. "Modelling the dynamics of regional employment–population ratios and their commonality," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(2), pages 338-354, February.
    10. W D A Bryant, 2009. "General Equilibrium:Theory and Evidence," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 6875, January.
    11. Mallick, Debdulal, 2019. "Policy regimes and the shape of the Phillips curve in Australia," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1077-1094.
    12. Robert G. Valletta, 2005. "Why has the U.S. Beveridge curve shifted back? new evidence using regional data," Working Paper Series 2005-25, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    13. Sniekers, F.J.T., 2013. "Endogenous Beveridge cycles and the volatility of unemployment," CeNDEF Working Papers 13-12, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    14. Howard J. Wall & Gylfi Zoega, 2002. "The British Beveridge curve: A tale of ten regions," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 64(3), pages 257-276, July.
    15. Ronald Bachmann, 2005. "Skill mismatch in equilibrium unemployment," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2005-034, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, revised Aug 2005.
    16. Nicolaas Groenewold, 2003. "Long-Run Shifts of the Beveridge Curve and the Frictional Unemployment Rate in Australia," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 6(1), pages 65-82, March.
    17. Andrés Álvarez, 2016. "La Curva de Beveridge en Colombia (1976-2014): Cambios cíclicos y estructurales," Borradores de Economia 962, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    18. Steven J. Davis & R. Jason Faberman & John C. Haltiwanger, 2013. "The Establishment-Level Behavior of Vacancies and Hiring," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 581-622.
    19. Charles Wyplosz, 2001. "Do we know how low inflation should be?," IHEID Working Papers 06-2001, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    20. Chew Lian Chua & Tim Robinson, 2018. "Why Has Australian Wages Growth Been So Low? A Phillips Curve Perspective," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 94(S1), pages 11-32, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Equilibrium Unemployment Rate Beveridge curve Australia;

    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
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:mlb:wpaper:1033. 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: Dandapani Lokanathan (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demelau.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.