RECONSTRUCTING THE PATTERN OF AMERICAN UNEMPLOYMENT BEFORE THE FIRST-WORLD-WAR

This paper calculates the distribution of unemployment duration length s and transition rates for Massachusetts workers in the late nineteent h century. Using data on time spent out of work and assuming that the spell durations followed a Weibull distribution, I parameterize a mode l of the timing of transitions from unemployment to employment and vic e versa. I then simulate the employment experience of representative w orkers and construct distributions of completed spell lengths. The exp erience of most out-of-work workers in a year seems to have been in on e rather long spell rather than in shorter multiple ones.