Résultat de la recherche
From Lifetime Jobs to Churning?
Using data over 1991–2008 for Switzerland, we investigate job stability through a series of Cox proportional hazards models. Our baseline results show that employment has become less stable for older male workers, with less noticeable change for other groups. However, when destination states are considered in the model, results indicate that younger workers face more transitions towards unemployment than before, whereas older male workers’ greater instability is caused by an increase in transitions to inactivity. It thus appears that the situation of young workers has deteriorated, while the evolution of older men’s job stability is at least partly explained by the increasing number of early retirements. For women, our results are largely consistent with their increasing participation rate and attachment to the labor market.
The Causal Relationship between Energy Use and Economic Growth in Switzerland
This paper investigates the relationships between energy consumption and economic growth in Switzerland over the period 1950–2010. We apply bounds testing techniques to different energy types separately. Robustness tests are performed by including additional variables and restricting the analysis to the period after 1970. The results show that there exist robust long-run relationships going from real GDP toward heating oil and electricity consumption. The relationship between heating oil and GDP is in fact bidirectional, although weaker from heating oil toward GDP than in the reverse direction. When investigating the period 1970–2010 only, the estimate of the long-run income elasticity of electricity consumption loses statistical significance and that for heating oil becomes negative. Those results imply a possible decoupling between GDP growth and energy consumption, so that energy conservation policies are not necessarily expected to have a negative impact on Swiss economic growth.
Have Unskilled Youths Become More Vulnerable to Unemployment in Switzerland?
We investigate the specific situation of youth with regard to unemployment. Even though Switzerland is known to suffer from low unemployment in international comparison, young and unskilled workers are the most vulnerable and therefore deserve attention. Using data from the Swiss Labour Force Survey over the period from 1991 to 2008, we conduct several statistical analyses to investigate the labour market situation of unskilled youths and its evolution. The results show that the situation of unskilled young workers has significantly worsened over the last two decades. Transition analysis and logistic regressions indicate more resilient unemployment for unskilled youths. The business cycle, bilateral agreements with the EU granting free movement of labour and technological changes are all potential explanations of this phenomenon.