Duration and Calendar Time Dependence of the Exit Rate out of Unemployment in Belgium. Is it True or Spurious?

n this paper, we investigate what causes the aggregate exit rate out of unemployment estimated in Wallonia (Belgium) to decline over duration and to vary over calendar time. For that purpose, we specify a mixed proportional hazard (MPH) model where the mixing distribution depends on seasons and business cycle at the time of entry. Given its too restrictive nature, we relax the proportionality assumption in three ways. First, we allow the baseline hazard to vary non-proportionally between a boom and a recession in order to test the ranking hypothesis. Second, the variance of the mixing distribu... Mehr ...