Flow and stock analysis of Polish unemployment: January 1990-June 1991*

Abstract. Unemployment is and will be for the foreseeable future one of the major issues of economies in transition. Not onIy is unemployment in post-communist economies a socially explosive problem; what happens on the unemployment front allows us to also make inferences about the state of the transition process in general. In this paper we look at Polish unemployment as it evolved from January 1990 to June 1991. A framework is developed which allows us to discuss flows into and out of unemployment. In analyzing the determinants of the various flows we discuss the macroeconomic environment brought about by the reforms and the role of prices and wages. However, we stress above all institutional and structural factors which have an impact on labour flows in the Polish post-communist economy. The stocks of several variables are also analyzed. We relate the trends of some unemployment stocks (especially the stocks of school leavers and group layoffs) to the trend of the overall stock of unemployment. We also look at the trends of vacancies and of various UIV ratios and touch upon the short run and long run trends of employment by sector. The main conclusion of the paper is that the high level of unemployment in Poland is neither due to the elimination of hidden unemployment (it actually increased in 1990!) nor a result of restructuring. The level of unemployment is high because of large inflows from outside the labour force and because hirings have been much fewer than in previous years while separations have only been slightly greater.     

Subjective Measures of Employment Opportunities and Interregional Migration

Abstract. Empirical studies of interregional mobility routinely use regional unemployment differentials to characterize economic incentives to move between regions. In this paper, we present a new regional labour market indicator computed from survey data in which respondents are asked to evaluate local employment opportunities in their resident municipality and surroundings. The subjective measures of satisfaction with local employment opportunities have positive and significant impact on interregional migration flows, also when controlling for traditional measures of regional labour market conditions, including the regional unemployment rate. Contrary to most European studies, we find that regional labour market conditions have a strong effect on interregional migration flows.     

From the Marginal Equilibrium to the Generational Paradigm. Microeconomic Behavior in a Dynamic Model of Social Equilibrium

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this paper is to formulate an initial hypothetical framework describing microeconomic behavior of labour market agents in a dynamic model of social equilibrium. To this end we outline an alternative hypothesis concerning the process of determination of labour demand and of the allocation of employment requirements on a generational basis. Reformulating the microeconomic model to consider labour as a quasi-fixed factor, comparable to a population, and which follows a biological, more than a mechanical logic, the paper assigns primary roles to careers and dual markets, the first-job market, and factors of asynchrony and social control mechanisms. At the same time, the generational determinants of the supply of labour are identified, together with the processes of identification and selection between labour demand and supply. On the basis of these considerations the concept of the generational paradigm is brought into the analysis. This paradigm designates the set of determinants of labour supply and demand behavior that are functions of time, of social and institutional variables, and of the technical and organizational structure of production. The paper ends with an initial thesis that the working of the generational paradigm is a crucial factor in the overall social equilibrium.     

Labour Flows as Determinants of the Wage–Price Spiral: An Empirical Analysis for The Netherlands

This study presents an empirical analysis of the influence of labour market flows on wage and price formation. A system of wage, price and employment equations after Nickell (Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 49: 103–128, 1987) is estimated, including labour flows as indicators of labour market tightness in the wage equation. An impulse response analysis using this system shows how changes in the flow of layoffs (flow from employment to unemployment) may be the basis of short‐run Phillips curve effects in The Netherlands     

Gross Worker Flows: How Does the Spanish Evidence Fit the Stylized Facts?

This paper examines the Spanish gross worker flows. Unemployment inflows are counter-cyclical while outflows are acyclical. Changes introduced in the Spanish labour market have increased the magnitude and variability of both flows, in particular the inflows, without affecting the acyclical behaviour of the outflows. Engagements and flows into employment from non-employment are pro-cyclical. Separations are acyclical, while flows out of employment to non-employment are counter-cyclical. So, job-to-job movements have to be pro-cyclical. Engagements and separations have responded positively to a wider variety of contractual forms. The Spanish evidence seems to be reasonably explained by the existence of a dual labour market between workers under permanent and fixed-term job contracts.     

Youth Unemployment and Opportunities in the Labour Market – The Myth of Lifelong Hysteresis

This paper examines whether the level of risk of unemployment for recently trained youths in the labour market has lasting effects upon their employment opportunities: will a cohort that enters the labour market during a period of high unemployment have a permanently higher rate of unemployment than one that joins the labour market during a period of low unemployment? The connection between occupational choice and employment status after graduation is also examined The analysis encompasses teachers, engineers and unskilled workers. The conclusion is that troughs and highs in the labour market have a significant but not necessarily permanent effect upon unemployment and placement in different industries.     

Male–Female Labour Market Participation and Wage Differentials in Greece

This paper is an empirical study of the development of labour market participation and wage differentials between males and females in Greece between 1988 and 1994. There is little known about the position of women in the Greek labour market. This paper uses survey data generated by the Greek National Statistical Service. The decision to engage in paid employment and the resulting remuneration are studied using selectivity–corrected earnings estimations. Oaxaca and Ransom decompositions and counterfactual analysis show that the adverse treatment of female labour market participation is the largest identifiable reason why the wage gap is there and why it increased between 1988 and 1994.     

A Stock–Flow Matching Approach to Evaluation of Public Training Programme in a High Unemployment Environment

Abstract. Monthly panel (1998–2003) data from regional labour offices in Latvia are used to analyse the matching process in a high unemployment–low labour demand environment and to evaluate the impact of active labour market policy programmes on outflows from unemployment. Results suggest that the hiring process is driven by a stock–flow rather than by a traditional matching function: the stock of unemployed at the beginning of the month and flow of vacancies arriving during the month are the key determinants of outflows from unemployment to employment, whereas stock of vacancies and inflow of unemployed do not play any significant role. We find positive and significant effect of training programmes on outflows from unemployment to employment, thus providing strong evidence against cuts in training expenditures.     

Labour Market Policy and Employment Growth in Sweden

ABSTRACT: In this paper, the author outlines the Swedish employment situation and traces the history of the labour market policy it generated, from its earliest development at the turn of the century, through to the Rehn-Meidner model, and then examines the various reactions and criticisms against it. It goes on to look at the trends and developments of the labour market in the‘80s, and concludes by making a speculative analysis on if and how the labour market policy has had an effect on the participation of various sectors of the population in the labour force, and if it has influenced unemployment in the Swedish labour market.     

An Integrated Accounting for Firms,Job Positions and Employment

ABSTRACT: Using flow analyses for the various population areas and the social accounting that may be developed using the data from these analyses, enables us to better comprehend labour market dynamics. This comprehension is taken a step further if we interrelate this accounting system to that of the productive system. This paper deals with the more limited task of formulating an integrated accounting system for firms, job positions and employment, in order to clarify the concepts of an individual‘s stay in the employment area — both on a stay-by-stay basis and throughout the course of his or her entire working life — and that of mobility. The paper similarly touches on problems found in measuring flows, discusses the concept of definitive exit and its analytical relevance, and finally examines some recent Italian contributions on the topics of birth and death rates amongst firms and employment flows.     

Statistics and the Single Market

Abstract. At the end of 1992customs barriers will fall and the European Internal Market will be realized, as envisaged by the Single European Act signed in 1986 by the EEC's member countries. Statistical Offices are preparing to meet the new information requirements from all the economic and social forces of the new Europe. EUROSTAT planned a politically endorsed statistical programme and established the European Statistical Planning Committee, enlarging the tasks of the Conference of the Heads of National Statistical Institutes. Each National Statistical Institute is urgently required to improve the comparability of statistics and implement the harmonised projects of the European Statistical Programme. Official statistics will conform to the new requirements in order to supply the business world, national governments, the EEC authorities and public opinion with up-to-date information to face a wider, more open and competitive market. The business world will focus its attention on information on the flows by sectors and very small areas. Statistics on intra-community foreign trades will shift from customs bills to new tools more directly assigned to national statistical bodies. National governments and EEC countries will need more information on population behaviour as to employment, consumptions, use of leisure time, fruition of public facilities, and social security, as well as more precise estimates of GDP, now the basic contribution to EEC budget. Citizens and public opinion will ask for timely information on migrations, social mobility, income distribution. Demographic projections show the European population is progressively ageing, unemployment is bound to decrease and women are going to be more present within society and the labour market. Information on the home care of elderly people. health, environment, crime prevention and the status of women in general will have to be supplied. Presently Statistics Offices have greater experience in two essential domains: conceptual frameworks and the techniques for conceptual statistical representation of the investigated events. Moreover, the improving of computer technology will provide substantial help to survey methodologies and data processing.     

Emigration and Immigration in Italy: Recent Trends

ABSTRACT: During the eighties Italy has evolved into being a receiver of immigration. However, the existence of large Italian communities abroad, and the persistence of exit migratory flows (although amply compensated by re-entry flows) show that the connotation of Italy as a country of emigration still persists. This paper points out the differing composition of present immigration flows to Italy compared to those of Italian migratory flows towards the more industrially advanced European countries over the past decades. The labour forces that constitute these present day immigration flows often possess medium to high educational qualifications, and are more frequently absorbed into the tertiary and agricultural markets, rather than the industrial sector. These immigrants rarely have regular, unionized occupations, and satisfy a demand for precarious, unstable labour which is in expansion in Italy, as in other countries. Furthermore, these immigration flows are directed not only towards those regions with high employment rates, but also to those with high unemployment rates. Thus, the implications are that the character of present day emigration can only be clearly understood by taking into account the highly segmented aspect of the labour market.     

The Pace of Job Creation and Destruction,Cyclical Shocks and Employment Dynamics

This paper investigates (un)employment dynamics in response to labour demand shocks using a small empirical flow model for the labour market in The Netherlands. The model explicitly takes account of the propagation of shocks through the various duration classes of unemployment and allows for duration dependence in the state of unemployment. A sensitivity analysis shows that 1. congestion in the matching process due to the increase in the pace of job creation and destruction may have substantial effects on (un)employment dynamics; 2. the effects depend very much on the initial pace of labour market dynamics and they are larger when the initial pace is low; 3. the labour market may be out of its equilibrium for quite a long time after a shock occurs; 4. fluctuations in the pace of job creation and destruction only lead to unemployment persistence in the model when the escape probability from long term unemployment is zero; otherwise, the economy returns to its original equilibrium, albeit with long adjustment lags in the case that the initial pace of structural change and/or the escape probability for long term unemployed is low.     

Turnover and Excess Worker Reallocation. The Veneto Labour Market between 1982 and 1996

This research exploits a large matched employer–employee data set for an Italian region, the Veneto, that is presented here for the first time, in order to analyse job and worker flows. In a first part, the paper computes worker turnover, job turnover, and excess worker reallocation over a time span of 14 years. The results are discussed, and comparisons are made between the quantitative features of the labour market in the Veneto region and those of other labour markets. In a second part, turnover and excess worker reallocation are related to search costs, and new empirical evidence is presented that helps in understanding the connections between search activity, unemployment, and the economic cycle.     

Longitudinal Analysis of Employment and Unemployment Based on Matched Rotation Samples

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this paper is to provide methodology to fit longitudinal data on employment and unemployment generated by the rotation sampling schemes of national labour force surveys. The proposed methodology, referred to as infinite-lag Markov models, is a generalisation of autoregressive Markov models developed for application in stochastic reservoir theory (Pegram 1980, Raftery 1985). Infinite-lag Markov chains have infinite memory and, therefore, can usefully serve to model labour supply behaviour taking into account, in principle, the complete past work experience of individuals, and not just the most recent past or the most recent spell. After a brief review of the rotation sampling schemes of 20 national labour force surveys, the different types of longitudinal sequences that can be obtained from the rotation schemes are examined. A review of various models proposed in the literature for analysing longitudinal data on employment and unemployment, expressed under simplified assumptions and in discrete forms, set the stage for the formulation of the proposed infinite-lag Markov model. The method is illustrated using matched longitudinal data derived from the US Current Population Survey.     

Labour Costs and Employment in the Service Economy

Abstract. In this paper we analyse the direct relationship between the cost of labour and employment in diverse service industries. In contrast to most existing studies, we assume that the tertiary sector is highly differentiated h terms of reactions to both supply and demand factors. The study suggests that we must reasses the relevance of demand factors, but it also confirms that the real cost of labour is a crucial determinant of certain kinds of service employment. Country comparisons have made US sensitive to the fact that the relationship between employment and the cost of labour is far from being globally similar. Each country exhibits behaviour in line with the peculiarities of its labour market.     

基于元模型的异质交易行为主体下股票市场微观结构仿真研究

股票市场由大量具有不同的理性程度、行为偏好以及操作策略的异质类型交易者所构成的,这些交易者汇聚在一起相互作用,以自组织的方式涌现出诸多复杂的宏观金融市场现象。基于主体建模思想,从交易媒介、交易活动以及交易者行为三个层面进行设定,构建模拟真实市场交易的人工股票市场元模型。其中交易者(Agent)按其行为偏好分为风险厌恶型、损失厌恶型、过度乐观型、保守型、过度乐观的损失厌恶型以及保守的损失厌恶型6类;交易策略则分为基础交易者、趋势交易者、零信息交易者和自适应型交易者4类。不同的行为偏好和交易策略自由组合形成代表性异质交易者,并在交易环境的约束下相互作用推动市场的演化。以我国沪深300指数实际数据为参照,采用AnyLogic系统环境下优化算法对模型参数赋值并进行敏感性分析,发现股票市值和波动率之间不存在直接的联系,且所有交易者的总财富值在无风险利率改变的条件下差别不大,这意味着我国金融市场很大程度上是一个零和游戏过程,有效市场假说在市场运行的宏观层面成立。而在微观层面,不同类型交易者的财富分布均值明显不同,说明交易者的操作策略和行为偏好直接决定了其财富状况。     

Employment Spells and Previous Labour Market History

ABSTRACT: In this paper the author analyses the influence of the past labour market history of an individual on the length of employment spells he will experience. Most empirical works emphasize the so called Markov model, which implies that the probability of an individual changing state depends only on the state currently occupied. Using data on the labour market histories of a sample of unemployed persons, we specify and estimate a reduced form model where job separation rates arc a function of the entire labour market history and of variables related to personal characteristics and labour market conditions. The empirical analysis supports the claim that transition probabilities are related to past labour market history.     

Price Effects of the Minimum Wage: A Survey Data Analysis for the German Construction Sector

Utilizing the link between employment and price changes as a result of minimum wages, we use firm‐level data to evaluate the effect of minimum wage introduction in the German construction sector. In East Germany we find significant positive price effects that exclude the possibility of rising employment. Rather, the results indicate the existence of a competitive sector‐specific labour market, and thus declining employment. In contrast, we cannot find any significant price reaction for West Germany. This suggests that the implemented minimum wage in West Germany is too low in comparison to the predominantly paid wages and is hence not binding.     

The Role of Entrepreneurship in the Context of Career Trajectories: Moving Back into Wage Employment or into Unemployment?

This study investigates patterns of movement from self‐employment to wage employment or to unemployment in Belgium. Non‐parametric techniques and complimentary log–log analyses are used to determine the significance of stable individual traits (e.g. gender) and of time‐dependent characteristics (e.g. family and organizational context, labour market mobility) in moving back to wage employment or to unemployment. Evidence is provided on the possibility of entrepreneurship acting as a ‘steppingstone’ between long‐term unemployment and paid work. Yet, significant relationships also emerge between ex‐ante time spent in unemployment and the possibility of continued unemployment upon self‐employment exit.