This paper estimates an unobserved components model to explore coal consumption in the USA. We ask whether coal consumption exhibits hysteresis, defined as a dynamic structure in which the cyclical component of coal consumption has permanent effects on the natural component. In contrast to...

An often applied labour market policy to combat unemployment is to stimulate unemployed individuals to start their own businesses. Such policy may at least, temporarily lead to increases in self-employment, in particular, in the number of own-account workers. These policies may be called...

We explore the macrostructure of entrepreneurship rates in a panel of 23 OECD countries over 1972--2006. We find that rates of entrepreneurship in OECD countries exhibit persistence rather than hysteresis. Implications for the design of entrepreneurship policies are discussed.

This article re-examines the persistence in natural gas consumption using an alternative methodology. In particular we report estimates of an unobserved components model, in which hysteresis exists if cyclical and natural gas consumptions do not evolve independently. In addition, this framework...

Spain is destroying more jobs than any other European country. In the third quarter of 2009, the unemployment rate stood at 17.9%, the second-highest rate in the 27-nation EU and the highest rate in the euro area (EA-16). The exponential growth of the Spanish unemployment rate is the by-product...

This work tries to determine whether it is possible to stabilize CO2 emissions under a rapid increase of Gross Domestic Product in a medium term. The paper is an effort to study in detail how changes in the driving forces of the economy affect CO2 emissions. We study the case of Venezuela for...

Is it possible for a country in the process of development to comply with the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the medium term? This is the question that inspired this study. This paper is an extension of a previous study focused on economic development and CO2 emissions in the...