The Sahm Rule and Predicting the Great Recession across OECD Countries

We examine the start date of the Great Recession across OECD countries. The Sahm Rule identifies the start of recession in the US to the beginning of 2008 but in most other OECD countries it identifies the start after that identified by two successive falls in quarterly GDP. We establish our own rule for predicting recession using the fear of unemployment series to predict recession. We show a 10-point rise in the series compared to its previous 12 month low predicted the onset of the Great Recession in both the United States and Europe

How is the distribution of psychological distress changing over time? Who is driving these changes? Analysis of the 1958 and 1970 British birth cohorts

AIMS: The main objective of this study was to investigate distributional shifts underlying observed age and cohort differences in mean levels of psychological distress in the 1958 and 1970 British birth cohorts. METHODS: This study used data from the 1958 and 1970 British birth cohorts (n = 24,707). Psychological distress was measured by the Malaise Inventory at ages 23, 33, 42 and 50 in the 1958 cohort and 26, 34, 42 and 46–48 in the 1970 cohort. RESULTS: The shifts in the distribution across age appear to be mainly due to changing proportion of those with moderate symptoms, except for midlife (age 42–50) when we observed polarisation in distress— an increase in proportions of people with no symptoms and multiple symptoms. The elevated levels of distress in the 1970 cohort, compared with the 1958 cohort, appeared to be due to an increase in the proportion of individuals with both moderate and high symptoms. For instance, at age 33/34 42.3% endorsed at least two symptoms in the 1970 cohort vs 24.7% in 1958, resulting in a shift in the entire distribution of distress towards the more severe end of the spectrum. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates the importance of studying not only mean levels of distress over time, but also the underlying shifts in its distribution. Due to the large dispersion of distress scores at any given measurement occasion, understanding the underlying distribution provides a more complete picture of population trends

The U-shape of happiness in Scotland

We examine well-being in Scotland using micro data from the Scottish Health Survey and the UK Annual Population Surveys. We find evidence of a midlife nadir or zenith in Scotland in well-being at around age 50 using a variety of measures of both happiness and unhappiness. We confirm that higher consumption of fruit and vegetables is associated with higher levels of happiness in Scotland. We compare this with evidence for England from the Health Survey of England. The decline in well-being between youth and midlife is comparable in size to the loss of a spouse or of a job and around half of the fall in well-being in the COVID-19 lockdown. We also find a midlife peak in suicides in Scotland. Despite higher mortality and suicide rates in Scotland than in England, paradoxically we find that the Scots are happier than the English. Northern Ireland is the happiest of the four home countries. We also find evidence of U-shapes in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the mid to late forties

Determinants of job satisfaction for salaried and self-employed professionals in Finland

This paper contributes to our knowledge of the determinants of job satisfaction by analysing the effects of employment status (self-employed or salaried employee) and work characteristics (autonomy, variety, task identity, task significance and feedback) on job satisfaction in a sample of 2327 Finnish professionals. The results of the structural equation model analysis show that although the self-employed are significantly more satisfied with their jobs than their salaried counterparts also in Finland, employment status as such does not explain job satisfaction when the five work characteristics are added to the structural model. Further, the analysis finds that task significance, variety and autonomy have similar effects on the level of job satisfaction among both employees and self-employed individuals, while feedback has a weaker effect when the individual is self-employed and task identity does not affect job satisfaction in either group. Overall the study points to the need to develop jobs that are high in autonomy, variety and task significance for professionals in order to enhance job satisfaction

The Acute Effects of a Caffeine-based Multi-ingredient Energy Drink Compared to Caffeine on Muscular Endurance

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Paraherquamide E

In the title compound, C28H35N3O4, also known as 14-de­oxy­paraherquamide A,the two pyrrolidine rings adopt envelope conformations. The piperazine ring of the diaza­bicyclo­[2.2.2]octan-3-one unit adopts a boat conformation whereas the two piperidine rings are in distorted boat conformations. Intra­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds are observed. In the crystal, the mol­ecules are linked into chains along the b axis by inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds

Overtime working, the Phillips curve and the wage curve: British engineering, 1926-66

This paper shows that wage-unemployment elasticities derived from estimated wage curves and Phillips curves may be critically dependent on the measurement of wages. Incorporating hourly wage earnings, that include the influence of overtime payments, can lead to seriously distorted results. Meaningful elasticities are obtained only if hourly standard wages form the basis of analysis. Work is based on a unique data set describing two homogeneous blue-collar occupational groups - skilled fitters and unskilled labourers - in the British engineering industry. Each group is also divided into timeworkers and piece-rate workers. Data are aggregated into a panel of 28 local labour markets and cover the highly contrasting periods, 1928-1938 and 1954-1966

Multiple shifts and fractional integration in the us and uk unemployment rates

This paper analyses the long-run behaviour of the US and UK unemployment rates by testing for possibly fractional orders of integration and multiple shifts using a sample of over 100 annual observations. The results show that the orders of integration are higher than 0 in both series, which implies long memory. If we assume that the underlying disturbances are white noise, the values are higher than 0.5, i.e., nonstationary. However, if the disturbances are autocorrelated, the orders of integration are in the interval (0, 0.5), implying stationarity and mean-reverting behaviour. Moreover, when multiple shifts are taken into account, unemployment is more persistent in the US than in the UK, implying the need for stronger policy action in the former to bring unemployment back to its original level