Combining Micro and Macro Unemployment Duration Data

We combine micro and macro unemployment duration data to study the effects of the business cycle on the outflow from unemployment. We allow the cycle to affect individual exit probabilities of unemployed workers as well as the composition of the total inflow into unemployment. We estimate the model using (micro) survey data and (macro) administrative data from France. The distribution of the inflow composition is estimated along with the other parameters. The estimation method deals with differences between the micro and macro unemployment definitions. The results also show to what extent the unemployment duration distributions corresponding to the two definitions can be described by the same model. This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the Journal of Econometrics .Unemployment composition; Heterogeneity; Duration dependence; Business cycle; Seasons; Unemployment definition