The Ins and Outs of Cyclical Unemployment

Gary Solon, Ryan Michaels and Michael Elsby

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2009, vol. 1, issue 1, 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)

JEL-codes: E24 E32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
Note: DOI: 10.1257/mac.1.1.84
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (334)

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Working Paper: The Ins and Outs of Cyclical Unemployment (2007)
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