IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scotjp/v50y2003i4p440-470.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What goes up sometimes stays up: shocks and institutions as determinants of unemployment persistence

Author

Listed:
  • Gianni Amisano
  • Massimiliano Serati

Abstract

We analyse the determinants of unemployment persistence in four OECD countries by estimating a structural Bayesian VAR with an informative prior based on an insiders/outsiders model. We explicitly insert unemployment benefits and labour taxes so that our identification is not affected by the Faust and Leeper (1997) critique. We find widespread hysteresis: demand shocks play a dominant role in explaining unemployment also in the medium‐run. Moreover real wages have low sensitivity to cyclical fluctuations and to labour market disequilibria. Our results emphasise the real power of the unions and their interactions with structural shocks and other institutions as crucial determinants of hysteresis.

Suggested Citation

  • Gianni Amisano & Massimiliano Serati, 2003. "What goes up sometimes stays up: shocks and institutions as determinants of unemployment persistence," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 50(4), pages 440-470, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:50:y:2003:i:4:p:440-470
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-9485.5004005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9485.5004005
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-9485.5004005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier J. Blanchard & Lawrence H. Summers, 1986. "Hysteresis and the European Unemployment Problem," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1986, Volume 1, pages 15-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Quah, Danny, 1989. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 655-673, September.
    3. Plosser, Charles I, 1989. "Understanding Real Business Cycles," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 51-77, Summer.
    4. Balmaseda, Manuel & Dolado, Juan J & Lopez-Salido, J David, 2000. "The Dynamic Effects of Shocks to Labour Markets: Evidence from OECD Countries," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 52(1), pages 3-23, January.
    5. Jordi Gali, 1999. "Technology, Employment, and the Business Cycle: Do Technology Shocks Explain Aggregate Fluctuations?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 249-271, March.
    6. Blanchard, Olivier & Wolfers, Justin, 2000. "The Role of Shocks and Institutions in the Rise of European Unemployment: The Aggregate Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 1-33, March.
    7. Layard, Richard & Nickell, Stephen & Jackman, Richard, 2005. "Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199279173, December.
    8. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Razin, Assaf & Tesar, Linda L., 1994. "Effective tax rates in macroeconomics: Cross-country estimates of tax rates on factor incomes and consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 297-323, December.
    9. Lars Ljungqvist & Thomas J. Sargent, 1998. "The European Unemployment Dilemma," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(3), pages 514-550, June.
    10. Blanchard, Olivier J. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1987. "Hysteresis in unemployment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-2), pages 288-295.
    11. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I. & Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1991. "Stochastic Trends and Economic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 819-840, September.
    12. Francesco Daveri & Guido Tabellini, 2000. "Unemployment, growth and taxation in industrial countries," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 15(30), pages 48-104.
    13. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1982. "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1345-1370, November.
    14. Samuel Bentolila & Giuseppe Bertola, 1990. "Firing Costs and Labour Demand: How Bad is Eurosclerosis?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(3), pages 381-402.
    15. Faust, Jon & Leeper, Eric M, 1997. "When Do Long-Run Identifying Restrictions Give Reliable Results?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(3), pages 345-353, July.
    16. Stephen Nickell, 1997. "Unemployment and Labor Market Rigidities: Europe versus North America," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 55-74, Summer.
    17. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1992. "Current Real-Business-Cycle Theories and Aggregate Labor-Market Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 430-450, June.
    18. John Geweke, 1999. "Using simulation methods for bayesian econometric models: inference, development,and communication," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 1-73.
    19. Horst Siebert, 1997. "Labor Market Rigidities: At the Root of Unemployment in Europe," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 37-54, Summer.
    20. Blanchard, Olivier, 1998. "Revisiting European Unemployment : Unemployment, Capital Accumulation and Factor Prices," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number GLS28.
    21. Gamber, Edward N & Joutz, Frederick L, 1993. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1387-1393, December.
    22. Rotemberg, Julio J & Woodford, Michael, 1996. "Real-Business-Cycle Models and the Forecastable Movements in Output, Hours, and Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 71-89, March.
    23. Nickell, Stephen, 1998. "Unemployment: Questions and Some Answers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 802-816, May.
    24. Ingram, Beth F. & Whiteman, Charles H., 1994. "Supplanting the 'Minnesota' prior: Forecasting macroeconomic time series using real business cycle model priors," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 497-510, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Monastiriotis, Vassilis, 2006. "Macro-determinants of UK regional unemployment and the role of employment flexibility," MPRA Paper 44, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Hjelm, Göran & Jönsson, Kristian, 2010. "In Search of a Method for Measuring the Output Gap of the Swedish Economy," Working Papers 115, National Institute of Economic Research.
    3. Echavarría-Soto, Juan José & López, Enrique & Ocampo, Sergio & Rodríguez-Niño, Norberto, 2012. "Choques, instituciones laborales y desempleo en Colombia," Chapters, in: Arango-Thomas, Luis Eduardo & Hamann-Salcedo, Franz Alonso (ed.), El mercado de trabajo en Colombia : hechos, tendencias e instituciones, chapter 18, pages 753-794, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    4. Bella Gabriel Di & Grigoli Francesco & Ramírez Francisco, 2020. "Is unemployment on steroids in advanced economies?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 1-17, January.
    5. Holmlund, Bertil & Alexius, Annika, 2008. "Monetary Policy and Swedish Unemployment Fluctuations," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 2, pages 1-25.
    6. Ghafar, Aiman & Masih, Mansur, 2017. "The unemployment rate and its determinants: the Malaysian case," MPRA Paper 110220, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Andrea Vaona, 2015. "Anomalous empirical evidence on money long-run super-neutrality and the vertical long-run Phillips curve," Working Papers 17/2015, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    8. Alexander Mihailov & Giovanni Razzu & Zhe Wang, 2019. "Heterogeneous effects of single monetary policy on unemployment rates in the largest EMU economies," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2019-07, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    9. BATTISTI,Michele, 2006. "Assessing persistence in the Italian rate of unemployment in presence of structural breaks and regional asymmetries, 1977 to 2004," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 6(3).
    10. Sunde, Tafirenyika & Akanbi, Olusegun Ayodele, 2016. "The Dynamic Effects of Monetary Policy on Real Variables in Namibia," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 4(1), January.
    11. Massimiliano Serati & Gianni Amisano, 2003. "Unemployment and labour taxation: an econometric analysis," LIUC Papers in Economics 122, Cattaneo University (LIUC).
    12. Tafirenyika Sunde & Olusegun A. Akanbi, 2016. "Sources of unemployment in Namibia: an application of the structural VAR approach," International Journal of Sustainable Economy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 8(2), pages 125-143.
    13. Andrea Bassanini & Romain Duval, 2006. "The Determinants of Unemployment across OECD Countries," Post-Print halshs-00120584, HAL.
    14. Sumera Arshad & Amajd Ali, 2016. "Trade-off between Inflation, Interest and Unemployment Rate of Pakistan: Revisited," Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 5(4), pages 193-209, December.
    15. Massimiliano Serati & Michela Martinoia, 2008. "The East-West migration in Europe: skill levels of migrants and their effects on the european labour market," LIUC Papers in Economics 208, Cattaneo University (LIUC).
    16. Tafirenyika SUNDE, 2015. "The effects of monetary policy on unemployment in Namibia," Journal of Economic and Social Thought, KSP Journals, vol. 2(4), pages 256-274, December.
    17. repec:ksp:journ3:v:1:y:2015:i:4:p:256-274 is not listed 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. Massimiliano Serati & Gianni Amisano, 2003. "Unemployment and labour taxation: an econometric analysis," LIUC Papers in Economics 122, Cattaneo University (LIUC).
    2. Gianni Amisano & Massimiliano Serati, 2003. "Unemployment persistence in Italy. An econometric analysis with multivariate time varying parameter models," LIUC Papers in Economics 121, Cattaneo University (LIUC).
    3. Andrea Bassanini & Romain Duval, 2006. "The Determinants of Unemployment across OECD Countries," Post-Print halshs-00120584, HAL.
    4. Howell David R. & Baker Dean & Glyn Andrew & Schmitt John, 2007. "Are Protective Labor Market Institutions at the Root of Unemployment? A Critical Review of the Evidence," Capitalism and Society, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-73, May.
    5. Tripier, Fabien, 2006. "Sticky prices, fair wages, and the co-movements of unemployment and labor productivity growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(12), pages 2749-2774, December.
    6. Mayes, David G. & Vilmunen, Jouko, 1999. "Unemployment in a small open economy: Finland and New Zealand," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 10/1999, Bank of Finland.
    7. Jordi Gali, 1999. "Technology, Employment, and the Business Cycle: Do Technology Shocks Explain Aggregate Fluctuations?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 249-271, March.
    8. Jim Malley & Thomas Moutos, 2001. "Capital Accumulation and Unemployment: A Tale of Two “Continents”," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 103(1), pages 79-99, March.
    9. Romain Duval & Jørgen Elmeskov & Lukas Vogel, 2007. "Structural Policies and Economic Resilience to Shocks," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 567, OECD Publishing.
    10. Mayes, David G. & Vilmunen, Jouko, 1999. "Unemployment in a small open economy : Finland and New Zealand," Research Discussion Papers 10/1999, Bank of Finland.
    11. John Keating, 2004. "Interpreting Permanent and Transitory Shocks to Output When Aggregate Demand May Not Be Neutral in the Long-run," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 608, Econometric Society.
    12. Laura Gérard-Prenveille, 2003. "Déterminants du taux de chômage d’équilibre et ajustements sur le marché du travail : une analyse sur données françaises," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 159(3), pages 17-37.
    13. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1999_010 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/6120 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. M.S.Rafiq, 2006. "Business Cycle Moderation - Good Policies or Good Luck: Evidence and Explanations for the Euro Area," Discussion Paper Series 2006_21, Department of Economics, Loughborough University.
    16. Echavarría-Soto, Juan José & López, Enrique & Ocampo, Sergio & Rodríguez-Niño, Norberto, 2012. "Choques, instituciones laborales y desempleo en Colombia," Chapters, in: Arango-Thomas, Luis Eduardo & Hamann-Salcedo, Franz Alonso (ed.), El mercado de trabajo en Colombia : hechos, tendencias e instituciones, chapter 18, pages 753-794, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    17. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6120 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Gil-Alana, Luis A., 2008. "Modelling the US, UK and Japanese unemployment rates: Fractional integration and structural breaks," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(11), pages 4998-5013, July.
    19. Bart Hobijn & Ayşegül Şahin, 2013. "Firms And Flexibility," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 922-940, January.
    20. Bozani, Vasiliki & Drydakis, Nick, 2011. "Studying the NAIRU and its Implications," IZA Discussion Papers 6079, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Marika Karanassou & Hector Sala & Dennis J. Snower, 2010. "Phillips Curves And Unemployment Dynamics: A Critique And A Holistic Perspective," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 1-51, February.
    22. Keating, John W., 2013. "What do we learn from Blanchard and Quah decompositions of output if aggregate demand may not be long-run neutral?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 38(PB), pages 203-217.
    23. Patrick Minford & Ruthira Naraidoo, 2010. "Vicious And Virtuous Circles – The Political Economy Of Unemployment," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 78(1), pages 1-22, March.

    More about this item

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

    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:bla:scotjp:v:50:y:2003:i:4:p:440-470. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sesssea.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.