The Variables

In this chapter we consider the economic and demographic variables that are relevant for our empirical analysis. The first part of the chapter is concerned with the notion of registered unemployment and characteristics and reliability of the sampled unemployment durations. In chapter VI.2 we consider the definition and the hypothesized impact of economic and demographic characteristics that are likely to affect a person’s perceived productivity, reliability and reservation wage, apart from unemployment benefits and wage offers. The relevance of the latter two variables for the determination of unemployment duration is particularly emphasized by search theory. We turn to these variables in the third part of the chapter and consider the measurement of unemployment benefits receipts and the construction of a measure for the mean of the wage offer distribution faced by the unemployed.