# What is a 'spell fixed effect' in this economic paper? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 14, 2021, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-spell-fixed-effect-in-this-economic-paper/942114 "2021-05-14T21:33:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-spell-fixed-effect-in-this-economic-paper/942114/1 "2021-05-14T21:33:47Z")
It’s a paper, way over my head as a layman, about the economic effects of unemployment insurance on job search behavior based on data from the French Pôle emploi (public employment services). I vaguely understand that fixed effects means none of the parameters used in their model are random (“we calibrate the model’s parameters with realistic values”, and explicit values for all parameters are given in the Appendix, Table A.1). I have no idea what “spell” means in the context of a “spell fixed effect” or “time-of-spell fixed effects”. The tables also refer to samples of “spells”. I’m confident this is not a paper about magiks. 😉 > **[Unemployment Insurance and Job Search Behavior](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3303367)** > > Unemployment insurance (UI) can affect unemployment duration and re-employment wages, through various dimensions of unemployed workers’ job search behavior. We ~Max ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-spell-fixed-effect-in-this-economic-paper/942114/2 "2021-05-14T21:45:56Z")
An “unemployment spell” would be a period during when someone is unemployed. So a time fixed effect would be the effect of a change in how long the person was unemployed. I don’t see that in Table A.1, but apparently it can be derived from their model (so they can predict how hard the person will look for a new job as time passes, etc) ETA fixed-effects model: > **[Fixed effects model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_effects_model)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > In statistics, a fixed effects model is a statistical model in which the model parameters are fixed or non-random quantities. This is in contrast to random effects models and mixed models in which all or some of the model parameters are random variables. In many applications including econometrics and biostatistics a fixed effects model refers to a regression model in which the group means are fixed (non-random) as opposed to a random effects mode... ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-spell-fixed-effect-in-this-economic-paper/942114/3 "2021-05-14T21:59:59Z")
Other fixed effects would be the effect of the person’s age, sex, etc. They are assumed to be non-random, but are not directly observable. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-spell-fixed-effect-in-this-economic-paper/942114/4 "2021-05-14T22:03:03Z")
Okay, that makes sense to me. Thanks. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2021, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-spell-fixed-effect-in-this-economic-paper/942114/5 "2021-05-17T19:05:27Z")
FIxed effects models in econometrics are used in what are referred to as “panel data” sets. These are data sets where a group of entities are observed multiple times. The entities might be individual people, companies, or geographic units like states. A fixed effect model assigns a dummy variable to each entity, to isolate any idiosyncratic effect associated with a particular person, company or other unit.