Duration of unemployment in Germany and the UK: A case study of nonparametric hazard models and penalized spines (mimeo)

Abstract

The paper investigates unemployment behaviour in Germany and the UK between 1995 and 2005 based on data from national panel studies. The study focuses on the investigation of covariate effects like gender, age and education on the duration of unemployment. Dynamic duration time models are used in which covariate effects are allowed to vary smoothly with unemployment duration. The intention of the paper is to demonstrate with state of the art models substantial differences between the two considered countries. Particularly gender and age influence quite differently the chances of finding a new job. As fitting routine penalized spline smoothing is employed using available software.