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The article analyses the interrelation between unemployment and new business formation using panel data for a large cross-section of countries. We find robust evidence for a positive influence of unemployment, domestic credit to the private sector and business-friendly regulation on new business formation. Our examination does, however, indicate no support for the view that new business formation significantly reduces national unemployment rates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates the out-of-sample forecasting performance of some linear and nonlinear univariate time series models on the monthly seasonally adjusted Canadian unemployment rates during the 1980–2013 period. The findings reveal that nonlinear time series models better capture the asymmetry present in the unemployment rate series at short and long forecast horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We analyse the reservation wages of first- and second-generation migrants, based on rich survey data of the unemployed in Germany. Our results confirm the hypothesis that reservation wages increase over migrant generations and over time, suggesting that the mobility benefit of immigration may be limited in time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we use 22 years of data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and information on plant closures to investigate the effects of unemployment on four indicators of unhealthy lifestyles: diet, alcohol consumption, smoking and (a lack of) physical activity. In contrast to much of the existing literature, which unlike our analysis is unable to assess causality, our results provide little evidence that unemployment gives rise to unhealthy lifestyles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We investigate whether the choice of a business cycle measure affects estimates of the cyclicality of labour market flows. We exploit precise administrative data on individual labour market transitions and study the association of alternative business cycle measures with individual transitions between employment and unemployment. We find indeed substantial heterogeneities across business cycle indicators that may have affected the results of prior studies on labour market transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article uses a randomized controlled trial to show that positive earnings effects of a labour market programme can be caused by either a faster return to employment together with a lowering of reservation wages or a more moderate return to employment together with an increase in reservation wages. I model wages and unemployment duration simultaneously in a hazard framework allowing for unobserved heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We use a national survey to estimate individuals’ discount rates for job creation in the community and test whether impatience for jobs is associated county-level unemployment change outcomes in subsequent years. Our results suggest that impatience for jobs is a possible forecast variable for future modelling efforts. To explore whether the impatience effect is general or simply limited to attitudes about local job creation, the same survey asked about discount rates for local amenity development and personal financial windfall. We find that job growth discount rates perform best for forecasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the transitions out of unemployment of the recipients of insurance benefits, focusing on whether or not they are recalled to their previous employment. Specifically, a split population duration model (SPDM) for the recall decision by employers is compared with a standard duration model (SDM). We find significant differences between the SPDM and the SDM estimates, both with regard to their magnitude and expected sign. Some of the variables record undervalued estimated hazard rates in the SDM with respect to the SPDM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-employment is usually associated with entrepreneurship and it is often promoted as a way of reducing unemployment. Our aim in this article is to analyse the relationship between self-employment and unemployment taking into account its spatial dimension. The entrepreneur activity in each region depends not only on its own endowment but the entrepreneurship environment may be exerted some influence. Regional Spanish data are used to obtain evidence about this relationship using a Spatial Durbin model to embed the spatial dimension. The results reveal that both the direct and indirect effects are relatively small. Further, if unemployment increases in a region, self-employment decreases. However, if unemployment grows in neighbouring regions, incentives for entering self-employment increase, implying that there is a ‘refugee’ effect (self-employment as an answer to the lack of wage employment). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unemployment has a heterogeneous effect on well-being. We combine a quantile analysis with matching techniques to analyse the negative impact of unemployment along the well-being distribution of a comprehensive well-being variable. In our analysis of British Household Panel Survey data (1996–2008) we focus on transitions into unemployment and find that average effects of unemployment on a comprehensive well-being variable are less strong than on typical life satisfaction measures. The effect of unemployment on a broad mental well-being variable (GHQ-12) is reversed and mentally less well-off individuals suffer from unemployment more strongly than those scoring high in mental well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By using a competition measure derived from the textual analysis of firms’ 10-K filings, we examine the relationship between product market competition and the county-level unemployment. We find that unemployment is negatively related to product market competition pressure and the result is robust in additional tests. We also find that this relationship is strengthened in a good economy. Our findings are consistent with the previous theoretical prediction that competition can reduce unemployment. This article provides new evidence on the interactions between product markets and the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our article tests for hysteresis of unemployment rate for 17 Eurozone countries over the period 2000:1 to 2013:1 through the use of new nonlinear panel unit root tests by adopting the sequential panel selection method (SPSM), proposed by Chortareas and Kapetanios (2009) and a nonlinear panel unit root test developed by Ucar and Omay (2009). The results show that the unemployment rates for 17 Eurozone countries are not stationary and conform to the hysteresis hypothesis for both panel unit root tests of Ucar and Omay (2009) and SPSM without Fourier. We reported the results of the Panel Kapetanios, Shin and Snell (KSS) test with a Fourier function and found that the unemployment rates in 11 countries are stationary and this result is in accord with natural rate hypothesis. On the other hand, unemployment rates in six countries, namely Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus, show hysteresis effect. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We report the results of an experiment that determined the importance of an information disclosure policy in job search behaviour. We controlled the level of employment information disclosed after every experimental round. When we announced the subjects’ wage levels, which at that point they had accepted along with their counterparts in a social network, the subjects’ average reservation wages increased significantly according to their initial preference. However, when this information was not revealed, the reservation wage remained the same despite the availability of the social network. We suggest that the green-eyed monster effect may be significant in explaining these results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using the results of surveys of senior company managers to measure the strictness of hiring and firing regulation, this article finds that stricter regulation moderately increased unemployment in developing countries over 1992 to 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using data on 78 countries from 1984 to 2008 and a large number of controls, this article studies the unemployment effect of a major characteristic of the financial system: its level of sophistication, i.e. the variety of financial institutions and instruments available to the economy. It finds that a higher level of sophistication is likely to reduce unemployment. The magnitude of the estimated effect is moderate but noticeable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using administrative data, this article measures the ‘effective’ duration of unemployment benefit recipiency. Our results suggest that this duration varies considerably when we use spells instead of data on individuals. The exit hazard rate from unemployment using spells is overestimated when compared to the one obtained with data on individuals and, therefore, the expected duration of unemployment benefit recipiency is underestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We go beyond unemployment to investigate how its determinants, specifically hires, lay-offs and quits, affect crime. As expected, we find less crime in localities with higher hiring and quit rates and lower lay-off rates. The size of relationships is on the order of studies analysing the link between unemployment and crime. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the 1990s and 2000s, unemployment was seen, both by academic labour market economists and policymakers, as a short-run disequilibrium phenomenon. Policy was aimed at increasing the ‘flexibility’ of the labour market, at removing obstacles to the workings of the market, which would ostensibly restore equilibrium in the labour market. In this article, I examine the correlations over time of relative unemployment rates at the detailed disaggregated level of both US counties and UK local authority areas, using the 1990–2010 period. The United States and to some extent the United Kingdom are held up as examples of the more ‘flexible’ labour markets to which other countries should aspire. But even over a period of 20 years, there is strong persistence in relative unemployment rates at local area levels in both countries, and especially the United Kingdom. This result extends to counties and local authority areaswithinindividual states and regions. Local areas with high (low) unemployment in 1990 are likely to have high (low) unemployment in 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]