Unemployment and the Social Safety Net during Transitions to a Market Economy: Evidence from the Czech and Slovak Republics

John Ham, Jan Svejnar and Katherine Terrell

American Economic Review, 1998, vol. 88, issue 5, 1117-42

Abstract: The authors investigate the remarkably short unemployment spells in the Czech Republic compared to Slovakia and other Central and East European economies. They estimate hazard functions and find that 40 to 5O percent of the difference in unemployment durations between the two republics is accounted for by differences in demographics and demand conditions. The remainder is explained by differences in coefficients, proxying the behavior of firms, individuals, and institutions. In both republics, the unemployment compensation system has a moderately negative effect on the exit rate from unemployment. Policymakers, hence, have latitude in providing adequate social safety nets without jeopardizing efficiency. Copyright 1998 by American Economic Association.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (110)

Downloads: (external link)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%2819981 ... O%3B2-L&origin=repec full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.

Related works:
Working Paper: Unemployment and the Social Safety Net During Transitions to a Market Economy: Evidence from the Czech and Slovak Republic (1998)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:88:y:1998:i:5:p:1117-42

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().