Labour market fluctuations in GIPS – shocks vs adjustments

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (7) ◽  
pp. 913-939 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Antosiewicz ◽  
Piotr Lewandowski
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Open Economy ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
German Economy ◽  
Impulse Response Functions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Cyclical Fluctuations ◽  
German Model ◽  
Lower Variability

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify factors behind cyclical fluctuations and differences in adjustments to shocks in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain (GIPS) and a reference country – Germany. The authors try to answer the question whether the GIPS countries could have fared differently in the Great Recession if they reacted to shocks affecting them like a resilient German economy would have. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a DSGE model of real open economy with search and matching on the labour market and endogenous job destruction, estimated separately for each country. The authors calculate impulse response functions, historical decompositions and perform counterfactual simulations of the response of the German model to the sequence of shocks identified for each of GIPS. Findings The authors find that all GIPS countries were more vulnerable to productivity and foreign demand shocks than Germany. They would have experienced lower macroeconomic volatility if they reacted to their shocks like Germany. Employment (unemployment) rates in GIPS would have been less volatile and higher (lower) during the Great Recession, especially in Spain and Greece. Real wage volatility would have been higher, especially in Spain and Portugal. Originality/value The trade-off between unemployment and wage adjustments vis-à-vis Germany was the largest in Spain, which also would have experienced lower variability of job separations and hirings. The evolution of the labour market in Greece and Portugal was driven rather by its higher responsiveness to GDP fluctuations than in Germany, whereas Italy emerges as the least responsive labour market within GIPS.

scholarly journals Unemployment and spell duration during the Great Recession in the EU

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Gradín ◽  
Olga Cantó ◽  
Coral del Río
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Unemployment Spells ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
The Eu

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the different dynamic characteristics of unemployment in a selected group of European Union countries during the current Great Recession, which had unequal consequences on employment depending on the country considered. Design/methodology/approach – The paper follows Shorrocks’s proposal of a duration-sensitive measure of unemployment, and uses cross-sectional data reported by Eurostat coming from European Labour Force Surveys. Findings – The results add some evidence on the relevance of incorporating spells’ duration in measuring unemployment, finding remarkable differences in unemployment patterns in time among European countries. Research limitations/implications – In this paper unemployment is analyzed for all the labor force. Future research should investigate patterns across specific groups such as young people, women, immigrants or the low skilled. Practical implications – It is generally accepted that the negative impact of unemployment on individual welfare can be very different depending on its duration. However, conventional statistics on unemployment do not adequately capture to what extent the recession is not only increasing the incidence of unemployment but also its severity in terms of duration in time of ongoing unemployment spells. The paper shows an easy and practical way to do it in order to improve the understanding of the unemployment phenomenon, using information usually reported by statistical offices. Originality/value – First, the paper provides a tool for dynamic analysis of unemployment based on reported cross-sectional data. Second, the paper demonstrates the empirical relevance of considering spells’ duration when assessing differences in unemployment across countries or in unemployment trends. This is usually neglected or only partially addressed by most conventional measures of unemployment.

Municipal response to the Great Recession

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 384-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cary Christian ◽  
Jonathan Bush
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Service Levels ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Financial Condition ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the Great Recession on small- to medium-sized municipalities within the states of Georgia and Florida using a newly developed set of quantitative indices. Design/methodology/approach An examination of the methods and strategies utilized by individual cities to maintain public service levels despite distressed revenues is performed. From the data, performance measures are developed and used to evaluate the efficacy of the various strategies used by the cities. Outcomes of Georgia municipalities were compared to similarly sized Florida municipalities to study how underlying differences in tax structures and economies might have affected those outcomes. Findings Georgia and Florida municipalities relied on very different strategies for surviving the recession and its aftermath. Enterprise activities were critically important in both states with transfers to or from governmental activities rationalized in various ways. While Georgia is generally anti-property tax, more than half the Georgia municipalities relied on property tax increases to survive. Municipalities were unable to count on increased intergovernmental revenues during the recession. Finally, even with a tourist activity advantage, Florida municipalities fared only marginally better during and just after the recession, and fared worse four to six years post-recession. Practical implications The measures developed in this study provide a new, customizable methodology for the evaluation of financial condition that does not require in-depth comparisons to peers. Social implications Small- and medium-sized cities, and especially those in rural areas, are worthy of targeted research to better understand their unique problems. Originality/value This research is novel in utilizing a fiscal condition methodology that can be applied to a single municipality and does not require comparisons to peers for validity. However, it represents a very intuitive and customizable tool for making comparisons between municipalities of any size when such comparisons are desired. Additionally, the focus of this study is on small- to medium-sized municipalities which generally do not receive as much research attention as larger cities.

A breakfast of champions: brand marketing lessons from the Great Depression

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 63-67
Author(s):  
Peter Buell Hirsch
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Brand Marketing ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This paper aims to examine whether the behavior of brands during the Great Depression held lessons for the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. Design/methodology/approach A review of brand marketing and advertising from the 1920s and 1930s. Findings There are many learnings from the Great Depression that are instructive for today’s brand marketers dealing with COVID-19. Research limitations/implications The review of the literature is not comprehensive and the findings are subjective. Practical implications Today’s brands can learn a great deal from the 1930s such as to take advantage of opportunities and avoid mistakes in today’s difficult environment. Social implications By handling today’s challenges skillfully, brands can refresh relationships with consumers overwhelmed with choices. Originality/value Though there was some commentary on this subject following the Great Recession of 2009, there has been little written about the lessons in brand marketing in the current situation.

scholarly journals The inevitable deservingness gap: A study into the insurmountable immigrant penalty in perceived welfare deservingness

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Reeskens ◽  
Tom van der Meer
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Unemployment Benefits ◽  
Target Groups ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Foreign Origin ◽  
Vignette Experiment

As the asylum crisis hit Europe in tandem with the Great Recession, concerns about declining support for equal welfare provision to immigrants grow. Although studies on welfare deservingness show that immigrants are deemed least entitled to welfare compared to other target groups, they have fallen short of isolating welfare claimants’ identity (i.e. foreign origin) with competing deservingness criteria that might explain the immigrant deservingness gap. This article studies the importance of welfare claimants’ foreign origins relative to other theoretically relevant deservingness criteria via a unique vignette experiment among 23,000 Dutch respondents about their preferred levels of unemployment benefits. We show that foreign origin is among the three most important conditions for reduced solidarity, after labour market reintegration behaviour (reciprocity) and culpability for unemployment (control). Furthermore, favourable criteria do not close the gap between immigrants and natives in perceived deservingness, emphasizing the difficulty of overcoming the immigrant penalty in perceived welfare deservingness. We conclude our findings in the light of ongoing theoretical and political debates.

Trends in the association of different forms of precarious employment and self-rated health in Germany. An analysis with the German Socio-Economic Panel between 1995 and 2015

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (11) ◽  
pp. 1002-1011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo-Kolja Pförtner ◽  
Holger Pfaff ◽  
Kira Isabel Hower
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Job Insecurity ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Precarious Employment ◽  
Adjusted Risk ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Labour Market Reforms ◽  
Working Poverty ◽  
Perceived Job Insecurity

BackgroundPrecarious employment has increased in Germany by means of labour market flexibilisation throughout the 1990s and 2000s. In this study, trends in the association of self-rated health (SRH) with different dimensions of precarious employment by gender in Germany between 1995 and 2015 were assessed considering different periods of labour market reforms and the Great Recession.MethodsAnalyses were conducted using the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1995 to 2015. All employed individuals aged 18–67 years and living in private households were considered for analysis to examine the risks of poor SRH by low wage, working poverty, non-standard working time arrangements and perceived job insecurity by gender. Predicted probabilities, adjusted risk ratio (ARR), adjusted risk difference (ARD) and trends were examined using pooled interval logistic regression with individual-clustered standard errors.ResultsRelative and absolute differences in SRH rose significantly over time by perceived job insecurity for men, but not for women. Working poverty appeared to be significantly associated with SRH in the Great Recession and the post-Recession period for both gender. Non-standard working time arrangements were not significantly associated with SRH for both gender, and low wage appeared to be significantly associated with SRH only for men in the post-Recession period.ConclusionsThe results highlighted the relevance of labour market reforms of deregulation and flexibilisation in Germany to differences in SRH by specific forms of precarious employment and gender differences in the impact of labour market reforms on precarious employment and health.

Robust malmquist productivity measurement: evidence from Spanish hotel industry during the Great Recession

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nickolaos G. Tzeremes
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
Hotel Industry ◽  
Malmquist Productivity Index ◽  
Productivity Index ◽  
Productivity Change ◽  
Productivity Measurement ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Crisis Period ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Robust Version

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a robust version of the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) in order to evaluate hotels' productivity levels during the Great Recession.Design/methodology/approachBased on the order-m frontiers, we apply a robust version of an MPI. We decompose the productivity into three robust components. We use a sample of hotels operating in the Balearic Islands and Canary Islands, and we decompose and evaluate their productivity levels during the period 2004–2013. Moreover, we evaluate hotels' productivity performance during the pre-crisis period, the US subprime crisis period, the global financial crisis (GFC), the sovereign debt crisis period and the after-crisis period.FindingsOur findings show that productivity did not deteriorate due to the adverse effects of economic crisis. This is mainly driven by increased technical change and the ability to operate at optimal scales. The long-term investment in innovation policies which are related to services and processes, appear to be the dominating feature behind hotels' productivity levels, which helped the hotel industry to recover quickly from the Great Recession.Originality/valueThe vast majority of empirical studies evaluating the productivity change in the hotel industry apply MPIs which are based on data envelopment analysis (DEA). However, the productivity measurement which is based on the nonparametric framework is sensitive to sample characteristics. In order to avoid such shortcomings, we apply a robust version of the MPI.

The effect of government spending innovations on the Ethiopian economy

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-121
Author(s):  
Hayelom Yrgaw Gereziher ◽  
Naser Yenus Nuru
Keyword(s):  
Open Economy ◽  
Government Spending ◽  
Small Open Economy ◽  
Recursive Identification ◽  
Impulse Response Functions ◽  
Size Of Government ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Identification Scheme ◽  
Real Gdp ◽  
Capital Spending

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to estimate the size of government spending components’ multipliers for the Ethiopian economy over the sample period of 2001Q1 up to 2017Q4. Design/methodology/approach The effects of government spending are analyzed by applying short-run contemporaneous restrictions for the identification of shocks in an SVAR in order to estimate multipliers for the small open economy. Accordingly, recursive identification scheme is used in this study. Findings From the impulse response functions, the authors found that aggregate government spending is less effective in stimulating the economy for the study period as evidenced by almost zero multipliers. This can be due to many structural and conjunctural factors that tend to lower the multiplier effects. At a disaggregate level, real GDP responds negatively to capital spending while its effect on recurrent spending is positive and insignificant on impact. The variation to real GDP is best explained by the variation in capital spending as compared to recurrent spending. Originality/value Though almost none in number, little research has been conducted in Ethiopia related to the effect of government spending shock on output. But this research deviates from the previous study by introducing a new methodology which is SVAR with cholesky decomposition. The previous study, however, used Bayesian VAR. Besides to that, using cholesky identification scheme, government spending is decomposed in to recurrent and capital spending to see the effect of government spending components on output and government spending multipliers are also computed both at an aggregate and disaggregate level.

scholarly journals Mismatch on the Dutch Labour Market in the Great Recession

De Economist ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 163 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo Erken ◽  
Eric van Loon ◽  
Wouter Verbeek
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
The Great Recession
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