Adjusting the Gross Changes Data: Implications for Labor Market Dynamics

James M. Poterba, Lawrence H. Summers

NBER Working Paper No. 1436 (Also Reprint No. r0835)
Issued in March 1987
NBER Program(s):   LS

This paper develops a procedure for adjusting the Current Population Survey gross changes data for the effects of reporting errors. The corrected data suggest that the labor market is much less dynamic than has frequently been suggested. Conventional measures sy understate the duration of unemployment by as much as eighty percent and overstate the extent of movement into and out ofthe labor force by several hundred percent. The adjusted data also throw demographic differences in patterns of labor market dynamics into sharp relief.

(395 K)

Published: Poterba, James M. and Lawrence H. Summers."Adjusting the Gross Change Data: Implications for Labor Market, Dynamics," Econometrica, Vol. 54, No. 6, ( November 1986), pp. 1319-1338.

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