Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/58786 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 6362
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper analyzes the contribution of the socioeconomic and demographic composition of the pool of employed and unemployed individuals to the dynamics of the labor market in different phases of the business cycle. Using individual level data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), we decompose differences in employment status transition rates between economic upswings and downturns into composition effects and behavioral effects. We find that overall composition effects play a minor role for the cyclicality of the unemployment outflow rate, although the contribution of the duration of unemployment is significant. In contrast, composition effects dampen the cyclicality of the unemployment inflow rate considerably. We further observe that the initially positive contribution of composition effects to a higher unemployment outflow rate turns negative over the course of the recession.
Subjects: 
gross worker flows
unemployment duration
decomposition analysis
Blinder-Oaxaca
JEL: 
J63
J64
J21
E24
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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