On the Reliability of Retrospective Unemployment Information in European Household Panel Data

Tomi Kyyrä, Ralf Wilke

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

The retrospectively recalled calendar of activities in the European Community Household Panel is a prime resource for cross-country analysis of unemployment experience. We investigate the reliability of these data and find that 26 % of unemployed respondents misreported retrospectively their unemployment status in the subsequent interview. We observe large differences across countries: While the conditional probability of consistent information is 96 % in the UK, it is just 51 % in Greece for a comparable individual. By analyzing long-term unemployment and unemployment persistence, we show that the results of cross-country comparisons are strongly affected by these data problems.
Original languageEnglish
JournalEmpirical Economics
Volume46
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)1473-1493
ISSN0377-7332
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

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