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An unstable Okun’s Law, not the best rule of thumb

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  • Brent Meyer
  • Murat Tasci

Abstract

Okun?s law is a statistical relationship between unemployment and GDP that is widely used as a rule of thumb for assessing the unemployment rate?why it might be at a certain level or where it might be headed, for example. Unfortunately, the Okun?s law relationship is not stable over time, which makes it potentially misleading as a rule of thumb.

Suggested Citation

  • Brent Meyer & Murat Tasci, 2012. "An unstable Okun’s Law, not the best rule of thumb," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue June.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedcec:y:2012:i:june7:n:2012-8
    DOI: 10.26509/frbc-ec-201208
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Fontanari, Claudia & Palumbo, Antonella & Salvatori, Chiara, 2020. "Potential Output in Theory and Practice: A Revision and Update of Okun's Original Method," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 247-266.
    2. Pham, Binh Thai & Sala, Hector, 2019. "Government Deficit Shocks and Okun's Coefficient Volatility: New Insights on the Austerity versus Growth Debate," IZA Discussion Papers 12492, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Woo, Jaejoon, 2023. "Revisiting Okun's law in South Korea: Asymmetries, crises, and structural changes," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    4. de la Fonteijne, Marcel R., 2014. "Okun's Law, Dead or Alive: A Fundamental Approach," MPRA Paper 83911, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Pär Österholm, 2016. "Time variation in Okun’s law in Sweden," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(6), pages 436-439, April.
    6. Compagnucci, Fabiano & Gentili, Andrea & Valentini, Enzo & Gallegati, Mauro, 2021. "Have jobs and wages stopped rising? Productivity and structural change in advanced countries," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 412-430.
    7. Tamás Kiss & Hoang Nguyen & Pär Österholm, 2023. "Modelling Okun’s law: Does non-Gaussianity matter?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(5), pages 2183-2213, May.
    8. Albers, Scott, 2013. "Okun’s Law as a Pi-to-1 ratio: A harmonic / trigonometric theory as to why Okun’s Law works," MPRA Paper 46633, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Laurence M. Ball & Daniel Leigh & Prakash Loungani, 2013. "Okun's Law: Fit at Fifty?," NBER Working Papers 18668, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Milen Velev, 2018. "Unemployment and economic growth: Is there a relationship in the European Union?," Acta Oeconomica Pragensia, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2018(4), pages 12-29.
    11. Thomas Obst, 2022. "Dynamic version of Okun’s law in the EU15 countries—The role of delays in the unemployment‐output nexus," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 69(2), pages 225-241, May.
    12. João Tovar Jalles, 2019. "On the Time‐Varying Relationship between Unemployment and Output: What shapes it?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 66(5), pages 605-630, November.
    13. Samuel Huber & Jaehong Kim & Alessandro Marchesiani, 2019. "Unemployment and the demand for money," ECON - Working Papers 324, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment; Gross domestic product;

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