Persistence Effects in Labor Force Participation

Robert Gay and William Wascher
Additional contact information
Robert Gay: Morgan Stanley

Eastern Economic Journal, 1989, vol. 15, issue 3, 177-187

Abstract: This paper examines empirically two facets of labor force participation dynamics that imply quite different interpretations of labor market fluctuations. The first, which underlies equilibrium business cycle models, is that workers time their participation to coincide with periods of high real wages. The second, which implies the existence of involuntary unemployment during cyclical downturns, is that workers' current labor force status is heavily influenced by their work experience in the recent past. The authors' results suggest that these persistence effects are a key feature of labor force behavior, particularly for teenagers, adult women, and older men. In contrast, very little evidence could be found to support the intertemporal substitution hypothesis.

Date: 1989
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/eej/Archive/Volume15/V15N3P177_187.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Persistence effects in labor force participation (1985)
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:eej:eeconj:v:15:y:1989:i:3:p:177-187

Access Statistics for this article

Eastern Economic Journal is currently edited by Cynthia A. Bansak, St. Lawrence University and Allan A. Zebedee, Clarkson University

More articles in Eastern Economic Journal from Eastern Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Victor Matheson, College of the Holy Cross ().