Unemployment Persistence in Argentina. Micro and Macroeconomic analysis of its Regional Incidence

FELIZ, MARIANO; PEREZ, PABLO ERNESTO; PANIGO, DEMIAN TUPAC

World Economic Forum

Ed. Fudan University

Lugar: Shanghai, China; Año: 2004 p. 1 - 20

The goal of this article is to present a methodological proposal for the study of persistence of unemployment in the different regions of Argentina. For that purpose we evaluate this phenomenon from two complimentary perspectives. First, we analyze the macroeconomic characteristics of unemployment persistence applying several econometric techniques that allow us to detect hysteresis in the unemployment rate as well as in the series that determine its behavior, such as the rate of participation and the rate of employment. Second, we perform a microeconomic analysis based on data from the User Base of the Permanent Household Survey, looking to study the factors that determine the persistence of unemployment amongst different population sub-groups. We try to find out whether the previous history of unemployment affects the probability of a person remaining unemployed or not. Afterwards, we present the public policy implications of the existence of persistence in unemployment and, then examine the main findings of the empirical analysis. In the end, we present a synthesis and conclusions.