Unemployment Dynamics in Czechoslovakia During the Transition

这项研究对从中央计划经济向市场经济过渡过程中的失业动态进行了严格的分析。随着所有转型经济体的失业率迅速上升，失业的决定因素和应对爆炸性局势的最佳政策问题已成为公共政策辩论的首要问题。该项目对这些问题做出了两个主要贡献。首先，它利用捷克斯洛伐克独特的数据，将传统统计分析与前沿统计分析相结合，考察了三组重要的研究问题。第一组涉及失业的起源和发生率。失业者的特征是什么？某些类型的工人(例如，年龄较大、女性或受教育程度较低的工人)被解雇的风险是否比其他类型的工人更大？第二组问题侧重于确定失业持续时间的决定因素。在此背景下，这项研究考察了失业持续时间如何随企业特征、个人人口和地区特征、不断变化的需求状况以及失业保险制度重要要素的变化而变化。第三组涉及估计和解释从失业到其他州(进入或离开劳动力市场)的转移率的变化。例如，具有某些特征且以前受雇于某一特定部门的工人离开失业去小规模私营部门或参加培训等的可能性有多大？与许多以前的失业研究不同，这个项目将失业的发生率和持续时间与确定的特定特征联系起来。这项研究的第二个贡献是与捷克和斯洛伐克劳动和社会事务部以及联邦统计局一起制定抽样方案和估计方法，以便进一步分析流入失业的人数。要解决的主要问题是，大型上市公司和新私有化的公司如何做出裁员决定。此外，新的数据集将允许估计从就业到失业的转换率。该提案的主要科学价值来自于其收集和分析与本世纪最重要的经济现象之一有关的信息性数据集的能力。中欧和东欧经济体在这一时期的巨大变化为我们提供了比任何中等收入或发达经济体都要大得多的解释变量变化。因此，这项研究将能够捕捉到主要的行为模式，并有助于我们理解劳动力市场在转型期间走向均衡的动态。

This study undertakes a rigorous analysis of unemployment dynamics in the transition from central planning to a market economy. As unemployment rises rapidly in all the transforming economies, the issues of the determinants of unemployment and the optimal policies to cope with the explosive situation have come to the forefront of the public policy debate. The project makes two major contributions toward these issues. First, it uses unique Czechoslovak data and combines traditional with frontier statistical analysis to examine three sets of important research questions. The first set relates to the origins and incidence of unemployment. What are the characteristics of the unemployed? Are certain types of workers (e.g., older, female or poorly educated workers) at greater risk of being laid off than others? The second set of questions focuses on identifying the determinants of the duration of unemployment spells. In this context, the study examines how unemployment duration varies with enterprise characteristics, individuals' demographic and regional characteristics, changing demand conditions, and changes in important elements of the unemployment insurance system. The third set is concerned with estimating and explaining variations in the transition rates out of unemployment to other states (in or out of the labor market). For example, what is the probability that a worker with certain characteristics and who was previously employed in a given sector will leave unemployment for the small scale private sector or for training, etc.? Unlike many previous studies of unemployment, this project relates the incidence and duration of unemployment to firm specific characteristics. The second contribution of the study consists of developing, in conjunction with the Czech and Slovak Ministries of Labor and Social Affairs and the Federal Statistical Office, sampling schemes and estimation methods for further analysis of the inflow to unemployment. The main question to be addressed is how the large public and newly privatized firms make their layoff decisions. Moreover, the new data set would allow for the estimation of the transition rates from employment to unemployment. The major scientific value of the proposal stems from its ability to collect and analyze informative data sets related to one of the most important economic phenomena in this century. The dramatic changes in the Central and East European economies in this period provide us with much greater variation in the explanatory variables than has been witnessed in any middle income or advanced economy. The study will hence be able to capture major behavioral patterns and contribute significantly to our understanding of the dynamics of labor markets moving towards an equilibrium during the transition.