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Employment and Unemployment in the Netherlands, 1960-1984: A Putty-Clay Approach (*)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2016

J. Muysken
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Limburg
A.H. Van Zon
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Limburg
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1. INTRODUCTION

Since the mid-seventies vintage models have played an important role in the analysis of the Dutch economy. Although earlier vintages of these models were of a clay-clay nature, due to technical progress in economic analysis and in estimation methods, more recent vintages are of a putty-clay nature. Examples of the latter are Kuipers and van Zon (1982) and Gelauff, Wennekers and De Jong (1985). We shall further refer to them as KvZ and GWJ, respectively. Our model fits in with this putty-clay tradition. However, before highlighting several features of our model, some general remarks should be made.

In the period 1950-1970 employment in the private sector in the Netherlands increased from 3400 to 4130 thousand man-years. It remained at a more or less constant level of 4100 thousand man-years till 1980 and then decreased rapidly to a level of 3800 in 1983, at which it remained for the years 1984 and 1985. Likewise, unemployment increased slowly from 70 thousand man-years in 1970 to 325 thousand man-years in 1980. Then unemployment accelerated towards a level of 800 thousand man-years in 1983, at which it remained for the years 1984 and 1985. The unemployment rate is about 17 % nowadays. Muyskens and Meijers (1985) explain that the earlier developed clay-clay vintage models cannot adequately deal with these turbulent developments in the period 1980-1985.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 1987 

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Footnotes

(*)

We thank H. Meijers for his computational assistance.

References

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