State Dependence in Unemployment among Danish Immigrants

This study examines the extent state dependence among unemployed Danish immigrants in a dynamic discrete choice framework. Three alternative methodologies are employed to control for the problem of the initial condition. The empirical findings show that there is a considerable correlation between the unobserved individual heterogeneity and the initial condition and that the degree of state dependence is overstated if we do not address this problem. The results show that an individual who was unemployed at period “t-1” has 6.5 percentage points higher probability of being unemployed again at period t compared to an individual who was employed at period “t-1”. This average partial effect is the same for western compared to non-western immigrants and women compared to men.