IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa98p42.html

Twin peaks in regional unemployment and returns to scale in job-matching in the Czech Republic

Author

Listed:
  • Stefan Profit

Abstract

The regional distribution of unemployment rates in the Czech Republic over the transition period is shown to be characterized by twin peaks, e.g. a high and a low unemployment equilibrium. The emer-gence of strong regional disparities at the beginning of the 1990s can, at least partially, be explained by regionally different degrees of competition between the emerging private sector and state-owned enterprises for skilled labor and the role of on-the-job transitions on the parameters of the matching function. This study presents a formalization of these effects and estimates empirical matching func-tions for a panel of labor market districts of the Czech Republic between January 1992 and July 1994. When time-series properties of unemployment to job exits are taken into account and dynamic panel estimators are applied, the Czech matching function is shown to exhibit increasing returns to scale, being consistent with multiple unemployment equilibria. Considering variables, which approximate the degree of job competition of employed workers in the search process, reveals strong heterogeneity of matching parameters with respect to the relative position of districts in the regional distribution of unemployment and vacancy rates, and the share of district employment in the private sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Profit, 1998. "Twin peaks in regional unemployment and returns to scale in job-matching in the Czech Republic," ERSA conference papers ersa98p42, European Regional Science Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa98p42
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa98/papers/42.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Boeri, Tito & Burda, Michael C., 1996. "Active labor market policies, job matching and the Czech miracle," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 805-817, April.
    2. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Diamond, Peter, 1992. "The Flow Approach to Labor Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 354-359, May.
    3. Patricia M. Anderson & Simon M. Burgess, 1995. "Empirical Matching Functions: Estimation and Interpretation Using Disaggregate Data," NBER Working Papers 5001, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Bianchi, Marco & Zoega, Gylfi, 1999. "A Nonparametric Analysis of Regional Unemployment Dynamics in Britain," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 17(2), pages 205-216, April.
    5. Oliver Jean Blanchard & Peter Diamond, 1989. "The Beveridge Curve," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 20(1), pages 1-76.
    6. Anderson, T. W. & Hsiao, Cheng, 1982. "Formulation and estimation of dynamic models using panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 47-82, January.
    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. Profit, Stefan, 1997. "Twin peaks in regional unemployment and returns to scale in job-matching in the Czech Republic," SFB 373 Discussion Papers 1997,63, Humboldt University of Berlin, Interdisciplinary Research Project 373: Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes.
    2. Daniel Munich & Jan Svejnar & Katherine Terrell, 2001. "Worker-firm Matching and Unemployment in Transition to a Market," Development and Comp Systems 0012011, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Munich, Daniel & Svejnar, Jan, 2009. "Unemployment and Worker-Firm Matching Theory and Evidence from East and West Europe," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4810, The World Bank.
    4. Burda, Michael C. & Profit, Stefan, 1996. "Matching across space: Evidence on mobility in the Czech Republic," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 255-278, October.
    5. Hujer, Reinhard & Zeiss, Christopher, 2006. "Macroeconomic Effects of Short-Term Training Measures on the Matching Process in Western Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 2489, IZA Network @ LISER.
    6. Ravi Balakrishnan, 2001. "The interaction of firing costs and on-the-job search: an application of a search theoretic model to the Spanish labour market," Working Papers 0102, Banco de España.
    7. Martin Robson, 2006. "Sectoral shifts, employment specialization and the efficiency of matching: An analysis using UK regional data," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(7), pages 743-754.
    8. Kano, Shigeki & Ohta, Makoto, 2005. "Estimating a matching function and regional matching efficiencies: Japanese panel data for 1973-1999," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 25-41, January.
    9. Puhani, Patrick A, 1999. "Public Training and Outflows from Unemployment: An Augmented Matching Function Approach on Polish Regional Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 2244, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    10. Smolny, Werner, 1993. "Non-linear models of employment adjustment," Discussion Papers 8, University of Konstanz, Center for International Labor Economics (CILE).
    11. Butter, F.A.G. den, 1993. "Labour participation and the flow approach : an empirical analysis for The Netherlands," Serie Research Memoranda 0017, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    12. Juan José Dolado & Ramón Gómez, 1997. "La relación entre desempleo y vacantes en España: perturbaciones agregadas y de reasignación," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 21(3), pages 441-472, September.
    13. Franz, Wolfgang, 1993. "Unvollkommene Arbeitsmärkte in makroökonomischen Modellen: Eine Übersicht," Discussion Papers 1, University of Konstanz, Center for International Labor Economics (CILE).
    14. Puhani, Patrick A., 1999. "Estimating the effects of public training on Polish unemployment by way of the augmented matching function approach," ZEW Discussion Papers 99-38, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    15. Burgess, Simon & Profit, Stefan, 2001. "Externalities in the matching of workers and firms in ritain," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 313-333, June.
    16. Ambra Poggi, 2019. "Regional labour markets in Spain: Can flexibility and local democracy reduce inefficiencies?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 98(3), pages 1499-1516, June.
    17. Abid, Anis Bou & Drine, Imed, 2011. "Efficiency frontier and matching process on the labour market: Evidence from Tunisia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 1131-1139, May.
    18. F.A.G. den Butter & M. van Dijk, 1997. "The Pace of Structural Change, Cyclical Shocks and Unemployment Dynamics," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 97-053/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    19. Tito Boeri, 2007. "Transition with Labor Supply," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Erik Berglöf & Gérard Roland (ed.), The Economics of Transition, chapter 5, pages 94-143, Palgrave Macmillan.
    20. Ottaviano, Gianmarco & Monfort, Philippe, 2002. "Spatial Mismatch and Skill Accumulation," CEPR Discussion Papers 3324, Centre for Economic Policy Research.

    More about this item

    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:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa98p42. 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: Gunther Maier (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ersa.org .

    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.