Hysteresis in Labor Markets? Evidence from Professional Long-Term Forecasts


Book Description

We explore the long-term impact of economic booms on labor market outcomes using a novel approach based on revisions to professional forecasts over the past 30 years for 34 advanced economies. We find that when employment rises unexpectedly, forecasters typically raise their long-term forecasts of employment by more than one-for-one and also expect a strong rise in labor force participation, suggesting more persistent effects than is traditionally assumed. Economic booms associated with changes in aggregate demand, when inflation is rising and unemployment falling unexpectedly, also come with persistent long-term effects on expected employment and labor force participation, suggesting positive hysteresis. Our forecast evaluation tests indicate that forecasters are, on average, unbiased in their assessment of these positive, persistent effects.




Hysteresis and Business Cycles


Book Description

Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as “hysteresis,” argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and theoretical literature that motivate this paradigm shift. The renewed interest in hysteresis has been sparked by the persistence of the Global Financial Crisis and fears of a slow recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The findings of the recent literature have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. In recessions, monetary and fiscal policies need to be more active to avoid the permanent scars of a downturn. And in good times, running a high-pressure economy could have permanent positive effects.




Recessions and Local Labor Market Hysteresis


Book Description

This paper studies the effects of each U.S. recession since 1973 on local labor markets. We find that recession-induced declines in employment are permanent, suggesting that local areas experience permanent declines in labor demand relative to less-affected areas. Population also falls, primarily due to reduced in-migration, but by less than employment. As a result, recessions generate long-lasting hysteresis: persistent decreases in the employment-to-population ratio and earnings per capita. Changes in the composition of workers explain less than half of local hysteresis. We further show that finite sample bias in vector autoregressions leads to artificial convergence, which can explain why some previous work finds no evidence of hysteresis in employment rates.




Unemployment Hysteresis, Wage Determination, and Labor Market Flexibility


Book Description

This paper examines the potential contribution of unemployment hysteresis theories to the understanding of the Belgian labor market. It estimates models of wage determination using aggregate and firm-level panel data. Two main conclusions emerge: (i) the long-term unemployed do not exert a negative impact on wages; and (ii) there is some evidence that the incumbent workers, the “insiders,” exercise market power in wage determination, taking greater account of their own interests than those of the unemployed “outsiders.” In addition, it is argued that the automatic indexation of wages to prices in Belgium can cause a downward rigidity in real wages, given the multi-tier real wage bargaining process. Recent initiatives, including the introduction of a competitiveness norm for indexation, and labor market programs aimed at the long-term unemployed and the young, such as the plan d’accompagnement and the plan d’embauche des jeunes, are appropriate in view of the existence of insider power in wage determination.




Hysteresis in an Evolutionary Labor Market with Adaptive Search


Book Description

This study undertakes a systematic experimental investigation of hysteresis (path dependency) in an agent-based computational labor market framework. It is shown that capacity asymmetries between work suppliers and employers can result in two distinct hysteresis effects, network and behavioral, when work suppliers and employers interact strategically and evolve their worksite behaviors over time. These hysteresis effects result in persistent heterogeneity in earnings and employment histories across agents who have no observable structural differences. At a more global level, these hysteresis effects are shown to result in a one-to-many mapping between treatment factors and experimental outcomes. These hysteresis effects may help to explain why excess earnings heterogeneity is commonly observed in real-world labor markets.




Hysteresis Effects in Economic Models


Book Description

This volume is devoted to the hysteresis phenomenon in economic relationships. This topic has received renewed attention in economics especially in the late eigh ties. Since the issue is not settled there is still a growing literature on it. The aim of this volume is to summarize the findings, present new results, and to draw attention to further research. All papers are written for this volume and are not published elsewhere. I am very grateful to all authors and referees without whose prompt and generous help this volume would not appear in the present form. A short summary of each paper is given in section 5 of the overview paper. Konstanz, January 1990 Wolfgang Franz University of Konstanz Contents Hysteresis in Economic Relationships: An Overview W. Franz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Hysteresis in Trade R. Baldwin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Some Evidence on the Membership Hysteresis Hypothesis in Europe M. C. Burda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Insider-Outsider Influences on Industry Wages D. T. Coe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Testing for Hysteresis in Unemployment An Unobserved Components Approach A. Jaeger and M. Parkinson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Unemployment and Deterioration of Human Capital J. Moller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Hysteresis, Nairn and Long Term Unemployment in Austria P. Neudorfer, K. Pichelmann and M. Wagner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Hysteresis in Economic Relationships: An Overview l By W. Franz Can the socialist man be created so as not to show any hysteresis trace of his bourgois or peasant past? N. Georgescu-Roegen (l971. p. 126) 1 Introduction The hysteresis phenomenon has received renewed attention in economic science.







Insider-Outsider Labor Markets, Hysteresis and Monetary Policy


Book Description

I develop a version of the New Keynesian model with insider-outsider labor markets and hysteresis that can account for the high persistence of European unemployment. I study the implications of that environment for the design of monetary policy. The optimal policy calls for strong emphasis on (un)employment stabilization which a standard interest rate rule fails to deliver, with the gap between the two increasing in the degree of hysteresis. Two simple targetiing rules are shown to approximate well the optimal policy. The properties of the model and effects of different policies are analyzed through the lens of the labor wedge and its components.