Laurent GUERBY wrote: >> > Unemployment (as defined by economists) is not observable.
me: >> so it doesn't exist? >> >> it may not be truly observable, but we can get a pretty good handle on >> the amount of unemployment in an economy, especially if we're trying >> to understand its changes over time. That is, the current official >> unemployment rate of 6+ percent is bogus (in many ways that lefties >> point to), but when the U rate rises (as of late) that says something >> about the real situation in labor-power markets. This can be seen in >> the fact that most if not all of the alternative measures of >> unemployment are rising. Laurent answers: > The street man definition of unemployment (100% minus employed divided > by population) is perfectly observable. the population isn't really observable. Nor is employment. All we have are guesses, though perhaps they are good ones. By the way, your "street man" definition of unemployment is nothing but 100% minus the employment/population ratio, a number that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly reports. To my mind, it's a mistake to look at any single number to understand what's happening in the labor-power markets. One of the various unemployment rates that the BLS reports, along with the E/POP ratio and monthly payroll employment numbers seem to be a good combination. > The economist definition is, as the data mentionned in the rest of my > post implies, a total joke and is not observable. Why is the official economist's definition a _total_ joke? the question of who is without a job but is actively seeking one seems an important question, even though it is not enough. (We should look at involuntary part-timers, discouraged workers, etc. in addition.) By the way, the numbers on employment and those on unemployment have similar problems and a similar degree of validity. Thus, the numbers on the unemployment rate and your E/POP ratio have similar problems and similar degrees of validity. > BTW, how do you explain the data in my previous post? Number of > economist paper studying this discrepancy is zero. Explain why? I remember looking at your data before and accepting the conclusion that comparing unemployment rates between countries can be deceiving. I don't have time right now for reading them again. -- Jim Devine / "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
