RT Generic
T1 Unemployment duration among immigrants and natives: unobserved heterogeneity in a multi-spell duration model
A1 Carrasco, Raquel
A1 García Pérez, J. Ignacio
A2 Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía, 
AB This paper studies whether the unemployment dynamics of immigrants differ from those ofnatives, paying special attention to the impact of accounting for unobserved heterogeneityamong individuals. Using a large administrative data set for Spain, we estimate multiple-spelldiscrete duration models which disentangle unobserved heterogeneity from durationdependence. Specifically, we estimate random effects models assuming that the distribution ofthe effects is discrete with finite support, and fixed effects models in which the distribution of theunobserved effects is left unrestricted. Our results show the importance of accounting forunobserved heterogeneity and that mistaken policy implications can be derived due to impropertreatment of unmeasured variables. We find that lack of control for unobserved heterogeneityleads to the conclusion that immigrant males have a higher probability of leaving unemploymentthan natives and that the negative effect of unemployment benefits for immigrants lasts longerthan for natives. Nonetheless, the estimates which do control for unobserved heterogeneityshow the opposite results.
SN 2340-5031
YR 2008
FD 2008-12
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10016/3469
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10016/3469
LA eng
DS e-Archivo
RD 19 may. 2024