Unemployment and Economic Welfare

David Andolfatto () and Paul Gomme

No 99002, Working Papers from University of Waterloo, Department of Economics

Abstract: Statistics that measure labor market activity, such as employment and unemployment, are often interpreted in the press and by politicians as measures of economic performance and social well-being. Discussions that focus on cross-country comparisons of unemployment, for example, seem to be based without exception on the premise that unemployment represents a social and economic ill, so that less of it is generally to be preferred. The purpose of this note is to demonstrate that some care should be exercised when constructing a map between labor market behavior and economic welfare and that, generally speaking, such interpretations are not justified in the absence of information concerning the economic circumstances that determine individual labor market choices.

Date: 1999-01, Revised 1999-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Unemployment and economic welfare (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:wat:wpaper:99002

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Waterloo, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sherri Anne Arsenault ().