Is Unemployment on Steroids in Advanced Economies?

By Gabriel Di Bella, Francesco Grigoli, Francisco Ramirez

July 24, 2018

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Format: Chicago

Gabriel Di Bella, Francesco Grigoli, and Francisco Ramirez. Is Unemployment on Steroids in Advanced Economies?, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2018) accessed September 20, 2024

Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

Despite conventional macroeconomic theory is based on the idea that demand shocks can only have temporary effects on unemployment, several European economies display highly persistent unemployment dynamics. The theory of hysteresis challenges this view and points out that, under certain conditions, demand disturbances can have permanent effects. In this paper, we find strong empirical evidence of unemployment hysteresis in advanced economies since the 1990s. Relying on an identification scheme instigated by an insider/outsider model, we study the effects of demand shocks allowing for cross-country heterogeneous dynamics, and exploit such heterogeneity to investigate what institutional settings have the potential to soften or amplify the effects of demand shocks. Our results indicate that strengthening labor market institutions that promote a faster adjustment of real wages, removing disincentives for firms to hire and for workers to be employed, and improving the matching between labor supply and labor demand can lessen the effects of adverse demand shocks and lead to a faster reversion of unemployment rates to pre-shock levels.

Subject: Employment, Labor, Labor supply, Labor taxes, Unemployment, Unemployment rate, Wages

Keywords: Advanced economies, Aggregate demand, Aggregate demand demand shock, Confidence interval, Employment, Europe, Global, Hysteresis, Labor supply, Panel VAR, Persistence, Phillips curve, Push factor, Replacement ratio, Shocks to the variance, Unemployment, Unemployment dynamics, Unemployment hysteresis, Unemployment rate, Unemployment response, Unit root, Wage inflation, Wages, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

33
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2018/169
Stock No:

WPIEA2018169
ISBN:

9781484367490
ISSN:

1018-5941

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