American Economic Journal:
Macroeconomics
ISSN 1945-7707 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7715 (Online)
The Ins and Outs of Cyclical Unemployment
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
vol. 1,
no. 1, January 2009
(pp. 84–110)
Abstract
A dominant trend in recent modeling of labor market fluctuations is to treat unemployment inflows as acyclical. This trend has been encouraged by recent influential papers that stress the role of longer unemployment spells, rather than more unemployment spells, in accounting for recessionary unemployment. After reviewing an empirical literature going back several decades, we apply a convenient log change decomposition to Current Population Survey data to characterize rising unemployment in each postwar recession. We conclude that a complete understanding of cyclical unemployment requires an explanation of countercyclical inflow rates, especially for job losers (layoffs), as well as procyclical outflow rates. (JEL E24, E32)Citation
Elsby, Michael W. L., Ryan Michaels, and Gary Solon. 2009. "The Ins and Outs of Cyclical Unemployment." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 1 (1): 84–110. DOI: 10.1257/mac.1.1.84Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- E24 Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital
- E32 Business Fluctuations; Cycles