@techreport{NBERw6636, title = "What Hides Behind an
Umemployment Rate: Comparing Portuguese and U.S. Unemployment",
author = "Olivier Blanchard and Pedro Portugal", institution =
"National Bureau of Economic Research", type = "Working Paper",
series = "Working Paper Series", number = "6636", year = "1998",
month = "July", doi = {10.3386/w6636}, URL =
"http://www.nber.org/papers/w6636", abstract = {Over the last 15
years, Portugal and the United States have had the same average
unemployment rate, about 6.5%. But behind these similar rates
hide two very different labor markets. Unemployment duration in
Portugal is more than three times that of the United States.
Symmetrically, the flow of workers into unemployment in Portugal
is, in proportion to the labor force, less than a third of what
it is in the United States. Relying on evidence from Portuguese
and U.S. micro data sets, we show that these lower flows come in
roughly equal proportions from lower job flows, and from lower
worker flows relative to job flow