Structural or Cyclical? Unemployment in Latvia Since the 2008-09 Financial Crisis

Alfred Vanags, Konstantin Sonin, Daria Anosova and Anna Zasova

No 9525, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: In terms of output decline and increase in unemployment, the economic recession in Latvia that started during the 2008-09 financial crisis was one of the most severe in the world. Using both decomposition of the unemployment rate into structural and cyclical components and Mortensen and Pissarides? search and matching approach, we demonstrate that the changes in unemployment should be attributed primarily to cyclical, rather than structural factors; as of 2013, a large share of Latvian unemployment is still cyclical. Our results provide important implications for anti-crisis policy in Latvia and elsewhere in the world: the surge in unemployment was largely a consequence of Latvia?s austerity policy.

Keywords: Cyclical unemployment; Labour market matching; Structural unemployment; Beveridge curve (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-lab, nep-mac and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP9525 (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:cpr:ceprdp:9525

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP9525

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().