We provide cross-country evidence on the relative importance of cyclical and structural factors in explaining unemployment, including the sharp rise in U.S. long-term unemployment during the Great Recession of 2007-09. About 75% of the forecast error variance of unemployment is accounted for by...

This paper provides the first assessment of the contribution of idiosyncratic shocks to aggregate fluctuations in an emerging market using confidential data on the universe of Chilean firms. We find that idiosyncratic shocks account for more than 40 percent of the volatility of aggregate sales....