The role of non-formal lifelong learning at different points in the business cycle

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 334-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Corrales-Herrero ◽  
Beatriz Rodríguez-Prado
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycle ◽  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
Labour Market Situation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Market Situation ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
The Impact

Purpose Despite the widely recognised importance of lifelong learning, there are mixed results on its causal economic impact. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how economic conditions change the composition of participants in non-formal lifelong learning and whether the business cycle is relevant for the impact of non-formal lifelong learning on employability. Design/methodology/approach Non-linear decomposition techniques and matching estimators based on multidimensional covariates are applied to the Spanish sample of the European Adult Education Survey. The analysis controls for background, human capital and personal traits and draws a distinction between unemployed and employed workers. Findings The results show major differences in the volume and composition of participants before and during the Great Recession. In addition, there is a business cycle dependence of the effectiveness of non-formal lifelong learning that varies with the individual labour market situation. While lifelong learning proves more effective for the unemployed in recessions, for the employed the impact is greater in expansions. Originality/value The paper provides new evidence on the scant results of the moderating effect of the business cycle on the impact of lifelong learning. The analysis is not restricted to training implemented within public programmes, but rather extends to any kind of non-formal lifelong learning undertaken by unemployed and employed workers. In this sense, the analysis provides information about the optimal moment to invest in lifelong learning from both the policymaker and individual as well as firm perspective.

scholarly journals Job separation rates of immigrants and natives in the UK during the Great Recession

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (7) ◽  
pp. 1036-1054
Author(s):  
Dafni Papoutsaki
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Uk

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the probability of job separations of immigrants and natives in the UK before and during the economic crisis of 2008. Design/methodology/approach A mixed proportional hazard duration model with a semi-parametric piecewise constant baseline hazard is used on a data sample of inflows into employment. Findings It is found that the crisis increased the probability of exits to unemployment for all groups, while immigrants from the new countries of the European Union seemed to have the lowest hazard towards unemployment even after controlling for their demographic and labour market characteristics. More specifically, even when we account for the fact that they tend to cluster in jobs that are most vulnerable to the business cycle, they are still less likely to exit dependent employment than natives. However, this migrant group is adversely affected by the crisis the most. Research limitations/implications Possible implications of out-migration of the lower performers are discussed. Originality/value This paper makes use of the panel element of the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey, and uses duration analysis on the individual level to assess the labour market outcomes of natives and immigrants in the UK.

Consumption, unemployment and the Great Recession

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 724-743
Author(s):  
Joaquín Alegre ◽  
Llorenç Pou
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycle ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Job Loss ◽  
Consumption Smoothing ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Household Members ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
Unemployment Spells ◽  
Unemployment Persistence

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test whether households with members that experience job loss shocks are able to protect their previous level of consumption. The paper also tests whether consumption protection is affected when spells persist through time. Design/methodology/approach – The paper estimates an intertemporal consumption model, where households try to smooth their marginal utility over time. For that purpose it analyses Spanish household budget surveys that span a long period, 1999-2012, including the Great Recession. Unlike most consumption datasets, this microdata is designed as a panel and provides detailed information for all consumption categories as well as household members’ labour status. Findings – The paper finds that consumption smoothing is dependent on the household member facing the unemployment transition. In particular, only main breadwinner’s unemployment transitions affects consumption smoothing. It also shows that the consumption drop persists beyond the period of the job loss for ongoing spells, although it follows a decreasing pattern. Finally, the estimation results are stable over the business cycle. Practical implications – The results suggest that Spanish households are not capable of fully insuring against main breadwinner’s unemployment shocks. Further, the results show that this effect remains up to two years for ongoing unemployment spells. Thus these results highlight a welfare loss by Spanish households with unemployed members. Originality/value – The paper extends the usual analysis of job loss shocks by the main breadwinner to include the cases of both the spouse and the rest of household members, who tend to account for most unemployment. Further, it tests for unemployment persistence. Finally, it checks the sensitivity of the results to the business cycle, including the Great Recession.

Some surprising facts about working time accounts and the business cycle in Germany

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (7) ◽  
pp. 940-953 ◽  
Author(s):  
Almut Balleer ◽  
Britta Gehrke ◽  
Christian Merkl
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycle ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Working Time ◽  
Hours Worked ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Employment Adjustment ◽  
Time Work ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
Short Time

Purpose Working time accounts (WTAs) allow firms to smooth hours worked over time. The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether this increase in flexibility has also affected how firms adjust employment in Germany over the business cycle. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses rich microeconomic panel data and fixed effects estimations to compare the employment adjustment of firms with and without WTAs. Findings The authors show that firms with WTAs show a similar separation and hiring behavior in response to revenue changes as firms without WTAs. One possible explanation is that firms without WTAs used short-time work (STW) to adjust hours worked instead. However, the authors find that firms with WTAs use STW more than firms without WTAs. Originality/value These findings call into question the popular hypothesis that WTAs were the key driver of the unusually small increase in German unemployment in the Great Recession.

Health and well-being in the great recession

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Askitas ◽  
Klaus F. Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Economics Of Health ◽  
Search Data ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
The Impact

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the authors can use internet search data in order to capture the impact of the 2008 Financial and Economic Crisis on well-being. Design/methodology/approach – The authors look at the G8 countries with a special focus on USA and Germany and investigate whether internet searches reflect the “malaise” caused by the crisis. The authors focus on searches that contain the word “symptoms” and are thought to proxy self-diagnosis and those that contain “side effects” and are thought to proxy treatment. Findings – The authors find that “malaise” searches spike in a fashion coincident with the crisis and its contagion timeline across the G8 countries. The authors show that results based on search recover previously known stylized facts from the economics of health, well-being and the business cycle. Research limitations/implications – Internet penetration is high across the G8 countries. The authors nonetheless cannot get a good handle on the part of the population, which is not online. Moreover the authors cannot get a good grip on all confounding factors. More research would be necessary with access to search microdata. Originality/value – The authors propose global proxies for diagnosis and treatment based on the “search buzz” for symptoms and side effects. The authors can thus capture trends on a global scale. This approach will become increasingly important.

scholarly journals Real vs. nominal cycles: a multistate Markov-switching bi-factor approach

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Danilo Leiva-Leon
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycle ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Probabilistic Model ◽  
Housing Demand ◽  
Real Activity ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Supply Shocks ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Simultaneous Inferences

AbstractThis paper proposes a probabilistic model based on comovements and nonlinearities useful to assess the type of shock affecting each phase of the business cycle. By providing simultaneous inferences on the phases of real activity and inflation cycles, contractionary episodes are dated and categorized into demand, supply and mix recessions. The impact of shocks originated in the housing market over the business cycle is also assessed, finding that recessions are usually accompanied by housing deflationary pressures, while expansions are mainly influenced by housing demand shocks, with the only exception occurred during the period surrounding the “Great Recession,” affected by expansionary housing supply shocks.

How green was my valley

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (7) ◽  
pp. 1059-1087 ◽  
Author(s):  
José María Arranz ◽  
Carlos García-Serrano
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycle ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Wage Distribution ◽  
Wage Dispersion ◽  
National Agency ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Earnings Distribution ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
Contract Education ◽  
The Impact

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the wage distribution in Spain, its evolution in recent years and the implications for increased wage dispersion. Accordingly, its attention focuses on the following issues: first, the paper investigates how personal, job and firm attributes affect the wages distribution and examine earnings differentials between and within groups of workers according to their individual and job characteristics throughout the conditional wage distribution; and second, the paper analyses whether the business cycle may influence the magnitude of these differentials. Design/methodology/approach – Using administrative data from the Spanish Social Security and the Tax Administration National Agency, the paper estimates OLS and quantile regression (QR) models in order to assess the impact of personal, job and workplace attributes on between- and within-groups wage inequality. Findings – Among other things, we find that, although the average wage has been increasing over time (until 2009), changes have not been uniform across the earnings distribution, making the dispersion fall during boom years but rise during downturn years. Furthermore, changes in the impacts of some characteristics (types of contract, education/qualifications, region and employer size) contributed to higher wage dispersion, while others (tenure) made the distribution more equal. Originality/value – The analysis of the paper in novel in that it investigates whether wage differentials respond to the business cycle and what the source of that variation is. Moreover, it analyses wages differentials not only at the mean but also throughout the conditional earnings distribution, making it possible to assess the impact of these attributes on between- and within-groups wage inequality.

The Influence of Enterprises with Participation of Foreign Capital on the Labour Market Situation in Poland

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57
Author(s):  
Dorota Sobol
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Foreign Capital ◽  
Foreign Direct Investments ◽  
Special Economic Zones ◽  
Labour Market Situation ◽  
Market Situation ◽  
Scientific Project ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Economic Zones

The aim of the article is to present the influence on the labour market of enterprises with participation offoreign capital in special economic zones (SEZ) in Poland. The research utilised selected results of the surveys conducted among enterprises with participation of foreign capital operating in all Polish special economic zones for the scientific project called Foreign direct investments in the special economic zones of Poland'. These findings are complemented by opinions from management boards of all the zones in Poland concerning the influence of the foreign direct investments (FDI) located in the individual zones on the labour market of the region in which they operate.

scholarly journals Autonomes Fahren statt Stop and Go: Vorschläge zur effektiven Gestaltung der deutschen Kurzarbeit

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 252-260
Author(s):  
Almut Balleer ◽  
Britta Gehrke ◽  
Brigitte Hochmuth ◽  
Christian Merkl
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Business Cycle ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Timely Manner ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Stop And Go ◽  
Time Work ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
Short Time

Abstract This article argues that short-time work stabilized employment in Germany substantially during the Great Recession in 2008/09. The labor market instrument acted in timely manner, as it was used in a rule-based fashion. In addition, discretionary extensions were effective due to their interaction with the business cycle. To ensure that short-time work will be effective in the future, this article proposes an automatic facilitation of the access to short-time work in severe recessions. This reduces the likelihood of a too extensive use at the wrong point in time as well as structural instead of cyclical interventions.

Government spending shocks and economic growth: additional evidence from cyclical behavior of fiscal policy

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olumide Olusegun Olaoye ◽  
Ukafor Ukafor Okorie ◽  
Oluwatosin Odunayo Eluwole ◽  
Mahmood Butt Fawwad
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Business Cycle ◽  
Government Spending ◽  
Generalized Method Of Moments ◽  
The State ◽  
Fiscal Policies ◽  
Asymmetric Effect ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Spending Shocks ◽  
The Business Cycle

PurposeThis study examines the asymmetric effect of government spending on economic growth in Nigeria over the period 1980–2017. Specifically, this study investigates whether the response of economic growth to government spending shocks differs according to the nature of shocks on them. In addition, the authors examine whether the stabilizing effects of fiscal policies are dependent on the state of the business cycle.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts the linear fiscal reaction function in addition to the nonlinear regression model of Hatemi-J (2011, 2012), Granger and Yoon (2002), which allows us to separate negative shocks from positive shocks to government spending. Similarly, the authors adopt the generalized method of moments (GMM) techniques of Hansen (1982) to account for simultaneity and endogeneity problems inherent in dynamic model.FindingsThe authors’ findings reveal that there is evidence of asymmetry in the government spending–economic growth nexus in Nigeria over the period of study. Specifically, the authors find that the response of economic growth to government spending shocks differs according to the nature of shocks on them. More specifically, the study established that the stabilizing effects of fiscal policies are dependent on the state of the business cycle.Originality/valueUnlike the traditional method of modeling asymmetry, which adopts the simple inclusion of a squared government spending term or by the inclusion of a cubic government spending term, the model adopted in this study allows us to model shocks and show how the responses of economic growth to government expenditure differ according to the nature of shocks on them.

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