What hides behind an unemployment rate: Comparing Portuguese and US labor markets

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Blanchard, O; Portugal, P
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Banco de Portugal; Universidade Nova de Lisboa
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.91.1.187
• 发表日期: 2001
• 页码: 187-207
• 关键词: job creation; EMPLOYMENT; security

摘要

Behind similar unemployment rates in the United States and Portugal hide two very different labor markets. Unemployment duration is three times longer in Portugal than in the United States. Symmetrically, flows of workers into unemployment are three times lower in Portugal. These lower flows come in roughly equal proportions from lower job creation and destruction, and from lower worker flows given job creation and destruction. A plausible explanation is high employment protection in Portugal. High employment protection makes economies more sclerotic: but because it affects unemployment duration and worker flows in opposite directions, the effect on unemployment is ambiguous.