Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Series: Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers Creation-Date: 1997-05-30 Number: 97-050/3 Author-Name: Jaap H. Abbring Author-Email: jabbring@feweb.vu.nl Author-Workplace-Name: University of Amsterdam Author-Name: Gerard J. van den Berg Author-Email: gberg@feweb.vu.nl Author-Workplace-Name: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Author-Name: Jan C. van Ours Author-Workplace-Name: Erasmus University Rotterdam Title: Business Cycles and Compositional Variation in U.S. Unemployment Abstract: In the past decades several features of U.S. unemployment dynamics have been investigated empirically. The original focus of research was on the duration of unemployment. In later studies the cyclicality of incidence and duration, compositional effects and duration dependence of the exit rate out of unemployment have been investigated. Unlike the partial approach of previous studies this paper takes all elements of unemployment dynamics simultaneously into account. We find that cyclical fluctuations in unemployment are driven by variations in the incidence, individual exit probabilities and the composition of the inflow into unemployment. We also find negative duration dependence of the unemployment exit rate which can be attributed to employers ranking workers according to the length of their unemployment spell.

This discussion paper has resulted in a publication in the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 19(4), 436-48. Classification-JEL: E320; J640; E240 Keywords: Business Cycles; Cycle; Unemployment File-Url: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/97050.pdf File-Format: application/pdf File-Size: 993716 bytes Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:19970050