Paper #295

Title:

The effect of unemployment spells on subsequent wages in Spain

Authors:

Alfonso Rosolia and Gilles Saint Paul

Date:

June 1998

Abstract:

In our analysis we try and recover the wage loss from unemployment in Spain and see how it is affected by previous unemployment experience, unemployment duration, eligibility for unemployment benefits, and previous wages. We also study its variations across groups. Our main conclusion is that while there is some evidence that labour market rigidities tend to lower it, the wage loss of displaced workers is remarkably high: more than 30%, that is, twice the equivalent figure for the US and France. Wages in Spain suffer from a serious mismeasurement problems that we do our best to control, so that our results are less robust than the ones that would be obtained with better data sets. However, they indicate a large level of wage flexibility in Spain.

Keywords:

Unemployment, unemployment duration, wages, job search, Spain, displacement, job loss

JEL codes:

J6

Area of Research:

Macroeconomics and International Economics

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