State dependence and labour market transitions in the European Union.

Using conditional dynamic multinomial logit models that allow to disentangle between state dependence and unobserved heterogeneity, this article proposes an empirical analysis of labour market mobility in the European Union based on EU-SILC data. It shows that the role of true state dependence varies a lot across social groups (according to age, sex and education) and across countries. In particular, state dependence can be related for the different social groups and country groups studied to various structural explanations in terms of institutional arrangements (education and retirement policies, leave policies, childcare policies, labour market policies…) and/or to employers' behaviour.