DP439 Gross Labour Market Flows in Europe: Some Stylized Facts

Author(s):	Michael C Burda, Charles Wyplosz
Publication Date:	August 1990
Keyword(s):	Business Cycle, Labour Force, Unemployment
JEL(s):	E32, J64
Programme Areas:	International Macroeconomics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=439

The purpose of this paper is to establish some stylized facts on gross labor market flows - using mostly new data from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States - which any theory of unemployment ought to explain. The regularities on gross labor market flows that we isolate are inconsistent with a large class of theories of labor markets and business cycles. Key results are: flows into and out of unemployment are countercyclical; these flows move tightly together, over both the cycle and the long run; the bulk of exits from unemployment actually represent job findings rather than exits from the labor force; employment inflows and outflows are procyclical.