Predicting Unemployment: What's Important?
Start Date
October 2024
End Date
October 2024
Location
Beacom Hall Room 208
Submission Type
Abstract
Track
Economics
Abstract
More and more, economic research makes uses of administrative panel data, which provide long time-series of highly accurate data, but lack some of the supplemental questions found in surveys. I use data from the Current Population Survey, which includes a short panel, to test whether these supplemental survey questions intrinsically contain unique information or serve as proxies for information that can also be gleaned from panel data. In particular, I forecast an individual worker's future unemployment status with and without information on each individual's recent past, and decompose the variance of the predictions in each case.
Predicting Unemployment: What's Important?
Beacom Hall Room 208
More and more, economic research makes uses of administrative panel data, which provide long time-series of highly accurate data, but lack some of the supplemental questions found in surveys. I use data from the Current Population Survey, which includes a short panel, to test whether these supplemental survey questions intrinsically contain unique information or serve as proxies for information that can also be gleaned from panel data. In particular, I forecast an individual worker's future unemployment status with and without information on each individual's recent past, and decompose the variance of the predictions in each case.
