17 Aug 2015
by Jim Rose
in business cycles, currency unions, economic growth, economic history, Euro crisis, job search and matching, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, occupational choice, unemployment, unions, welfare reform
Tags: employment law, equilibrium unemployment, Greece, Italy, labour market regulation, natural unemployment rate, Portugal, Spain, unemployment duration
The boom that preceded the bust in the Greek economy did nothing for the rate of long-term unemployment among Greeks. Long-term unemployment had been pretty stable prior to the economic boom after joining the euro currency union.

Source: OECD StatExtract.
Nothing much happened to long-term unemployment in Italy or Portugal in recent decades. Spanish long-term unemployment fell in line with the economic boom in Spain over the 1980s and 1990s up until the global financial crisis.
16 Aug 2015
by Jim Rose
in economic history, gender, labour economics, labour supply, politics - USA, population economics, welfare reform
Tags: abortion, economics of fertility, marriage and divorce, single mothers, single parents, teen pregnancy
13 Aug 2015
by Jim Rose
in applied welfare economics, economic history, income redistribution, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, welfare reform
Tags: child poverty, family poverty, family tax credits, Leftover Left, New Zealand Greens, Twitter left
The material hardship measure shows a falling child material hardship rate using a threshold equivalent to the ‘standard’ EU level, down from a peak of 21% immediately after the GFC to 14% in 2014.
Using the more severe threshold, there was a slight rise through the GFC to 10% and a small fall to 8%, the level it was at before the GFC.
Bryan Perry (2015, p. 7, Key Findings)

Source: Bryan Perry, Household Incomes in New Zealand: trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2014 – Ministry of Social Development, Wellington (August 2015), p. 133.

Source: Bryan Perry, Household Incomes in New Zealand: trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2014 – Ministry of Social Development, Wellington (August 2015), p. 133.
11 Aug 2015
by Jim Rose
in economic history, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, job search and matching, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, unemployment, welfare reform
Tags: equilibrium unemployment rate, Eurosclerosis, German unification, Germany, natural unemployment rate, poverty traps, unemployment duration, unemployment insurance, welfare state
German long term unemployment has been pretty stable albeit with an up-and-down after German unification. There is also a fall in long-term unemployment after some labour market reforms around 2005.

Source: OECD StatExtract.
08 Aug 2015
by Jim Rose
in budget deficits, great recession, job search and matching, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, politics - USA, unemployment, welfare reform
Tags: natural unemployment rate, taxation and labour supply, unemployment duration, unemployment insurance, unemployment rates, welfare state
The Great Recession was the first recession in the USA in a good 40 to 50 years where the composition of employment changed by much. Even the big recession at the beginning of the 1980s did not do much to the composition of unemployment by duration in the USA.

Source: OECD StatExtract.
Those unemployed for more than a year moved from barely double digits even in a bad recession prior to 2008 to coming on one-third of all unemployed. Likewise, those unemployed for less than a month halved from 40% to 20%. Something changed in the US labour market with the Great Recession and the long extensions of unemployment insurance from 26 weeks to 52 weeks and then 99 weeks.
07 Aug 2015
by Jim Rose
in applied welfare economics, fiscal policy, labour economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, welfare reform
Tags: Denmark, Finland, life expectancies, Norway, Sweden, welfare state
03 Aug 2015
by Jim Rose
in labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, unemployment, welfare reform
Tags: social insurance, taxation and labour supply, unemployment benefits, welfare reform
31 Jul 2015
by Jim Rose
in labour economics, labour supply, poverty and inequality, unemployment, welfare reform
Tags: James Bartholomew, poverty traps, social insurance, Social Security, taxation and the labour supply, welfare reform, welfare state
27 Jul 2015
by Jim Rose
in labour economics, labour supply, minimum wage, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, public economics, welfare reform
Tags: earned income tax credit, family tax credits, in-work tax credits, poverty traps, social insurance, Social Security, taxation and labour supply
24 Jul 2015
by Jim Rose
in business cycles, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, job search and matching, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, unemployment, unions, welfare reform
Tags: antimarket bias, Don Brash, economic reform, expressive voting, Homer Simpson, Leftover Left, lost decades, makework bias, neoliberalism, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, Sir Roger Douglas, Twitter left
Today, Closing The Gap – The Income Inequality Project boldly claimed today that there was next to no unemployment in New Zealand prior to the onset of the curse of neoliberalism.

There is an Internet on computers now where it is easy to find data showing that the unemployment rate was rising rapidly in New Zealand in the 1970s and in double digits by the end of the 1980s – see figure 1.
Figure 1: harmonised unemployment rates, Australia and New Zealand, 1956-2014

Source: OECD StatExtract.
Figure 1 shows unemployment was rising rapidly in the 1970s and wasn’t much different by the end of the 1970s to the unemployment rates recorded after about 2000 in New Zealand.

One of the reasons that Sir Roger Douglas wrote There’s Got To Be A Better Way was the rapidly rising unemployment in New Zealand and the stagnant economic growth in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

New Zealand was one of the most regulated economies, so much so that Prime Minister David Lange said:
We ended up being run very similarly to a Polish shipyard.
As for those jobs on the railways, the then Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash said in 1996:
Railways cut its freight rates by 50 percent in real terms between 1983 and 1990, reduced its staff by 60 percent, and made an operating profit in 1989/90, the first for six years.
24 Jul 2015
by Jim Rose
in business cycles, health and safety, human capital, labour economics, occupational choice, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, welfare reform
Tags: adverse selection, disability insurance, moral hazard, social insurance, welfare state
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