Alternative econometric methods for the analysis of unemployment duration, with applications to the UK job seeker’s allowance reform -PhD thesis-

Publication type

Thesis/Degree/Other Honours

Author

Publication date

June 1, 2013

Summary:

In this work, I present different methods for analyzing the effect of unemployment
compensation on the duration of unemployment and subsequent employment stability,
showing how going beyond standard models can provide useful insights to better
understand the effects of policy interventions.
Throughout the work, 1 use data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS),
covering the period from September 1993 to August 1999, a period that includes t he
Job Seekers' Allowance (JSA) reform in 1996.
In Chapter 1, I investigate the effect of unemployment compensation on the duration of
unemployment and subsequent employment duration using standard parametric binary
choice models applied to discrete transition data, and I find that UC is associated with
longer unemployment spells and longer subsequent employment spells. However,
results show no significant effect of the reform either on unemployment duration or on
post-unemployment job tenure.
In Chapter 2, I present methods for analyzing duration data using censored quantile
regression. The analysis confirms the basic findings from Chapter 1. However, what the
quantile regression analysis allows to capture is the substantial heterogeneity across
quantiles, with shorter durations being more sensitive to the policy variables
considered.
Finally, in Chapter 3 I present a method for applying quantile regression to censored
duration data that are discrete in nature. The implementation of the model is illustrated
using data from Chapter 2, where the durations are expressed in months. I find that the
model produces estimates comparable to those of standard OR models, with generally
smaller standard errors.
My work shows that using quantile regression models for duration analysis can provide
a richer characterization of the effect of policy intervention across different quantiles of
the distribution of the outcome of interest.

Subjects

Links

http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=8&uin=uk.bl.ethos.605148

Notes

Not held in Research Library - bibliographic reference only

Albert Sloman Library University of Essex

#523242

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