IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/openec/v30y2019i5d10.1007_s11079-019-09553-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Examining Structural Unemployment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Empirical Evidence from Unobserved Components

Author

Listed:
  • Ashwin Madhou

    (Central Bank of Mauritius)

  • Tayushma Sewak

    (Central Bank of Mauritius)

Abstract

We apply multivariate filtering techniques to quantify structural unemployment (NAIRU), potential output, output gap and unemployment gap for South Africa, Kenya, Mauritius and Ghana. NAIRU estimates are especially relevant for these inflation-targeting or hybrid inflation-targeting economies, allowing them to assess level of domestic slack and any potential build-up of inflationary pressures. Our findings suggest that increased government spending on education, a competitive exchange rate, and boosting the level of financial development (measured as the market capitalization of listed companies) can play a role in lowering NAIRU in these Sub-Saharan African countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Ashwin Madhou & Tayushma Sewak, 2019. "Examining Structural Unemployment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Empirical Evidence from Unobserved Components," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 30(5), pages 895-904, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:openec:v:30:y:2019:i:5:d:10.1007_s11079-019-09553-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11079-019-09553-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11079-019-09553-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11079-019-09553-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chinn, Menzie D. & Ito, Hiro, 2006. "What matters for financial development? Capital controls, institutions, and interactions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 163-192, October.
    2. Laurence Ball & Nicolás Roux & Marc Hofstetter, 2013. "Unemployment in Latin America and the Caribbean," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 397-424, July.
    3. Mark Aguiar & Gita Gopinath, 2007. "Emerging Market Business Cycles: The Cycle Is the Trend," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(1), pages 69-102.
    4. Andrea Bassanini & Romain Duval, 2006. "Employment Patterns in OECD Countries: Reassessing the Role of Policies and Institutions," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 486, OECD Publishing.
    5. Jakob Kapeller & Philipp Heimberger & Bernhard Schuetz, 2016. "What's 'structural' about unemployment in Europe: On the Determinants of the European Commission's NAIRU Estimates," ICAE Working Papers 47, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    6. repec:bla:devpol:v:22:y:2004:i::p:371-379 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Patrick Blagrave & Mr. Roberto Garcia-Saltos & Mr. Douglas Laxton & Fan Zhang, 2015. "A Simple Multivariate Filter for Estimating Potential Output," IMF Working Papers 2015/079, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Ali Alichi, 2015. "A New Methodology for Estimating the Output Gap in the United States," IMF Working Papers 2015/144, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Franco Modigliani & Lucas Papademos, 1975. "Targets for Monetary Policy in the Coming Year," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 6(1), pages 141-166.
    10. Andrea Bassanini & Romain Duval, 2006. "The Determinants of Unemployment across OECD Countries," Post-Print halshs-00120584, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ashwin Madhou & Tayushma Sewak & Imad Moosa & Vikash Ramiah & Florian Gerth, 2021. "Towards Full-Fledged Inflation Targeting Monetary Policy Regime in Mauritius," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-18, March.
    2. Ali Fakih & Nathir Haimoun & Mohamad Kassem, 2020. "Youth Unemployment, Gender and Institutions During Transition: Evidence from the Arab Spring," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 311-336, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christoph S. Weber, 2020. "The unemployment effect of central bank transparency," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(6), pages 2947-2975, December.
    2. Gunther Tichy, 2014. "Flexicurity – ein an seiner Umsetzung scheiterndes Konzept," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 87(8), pages 537-553, August.
    3. Antonio Bassanetti & Roberto Torrini & Francesco Zollino, "undated". "Changing Institutions in the European Market: the Impact on Mark-ups and Rents Allocation," Working Papers 11, Department of the Treasury, Ministry of the Economy and of Finance.
    4. Feldmann, Horst, 2012. "Banking deregulation around the world, 1970s to 2000s: The impact on unemployment," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 26-42.
    5. Horst Feldmann, 2013. "Technological unemployment in industrial countries," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 1099-1126, November.
    6. Yuan, Shenguo & Wu, Zhouheng & Liu, Lanfeng, 2022. "The effects of financial openness and financial efficiency on Chinese macroeconomic volatilities," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    7. repec:eid:wpaper:01/11 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Sachs, Andreas, 2010. "A Bayesian approach to determine the impact of institutions on the unemployment rate," ZEW Discussion Papers 10-058, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Ivan Jaccard & Frank Smets, 2020. "Structural Asymmetries and Financial Imbalances in the Eurozone," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 36, pages 73-102, April.
    10. Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2022. "Export diversification and financial openness," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 675-717, October.
    11. Romanos Priftis & Srec̆ko Zimic, 2021. "Sources of Borrowing and Fiscal Multipliers [Emerging market business cycles: the cycle is the trend]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 498-519.
    12. Horst Feldmann, 2009. "The quality of the legal system and labor market performance around the world," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 39-65, August.
    13. Javier Bianchi & Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez, 2018. "International Reserves and Rollover Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2629-2670, September.
    14. Joseph Atta-Mensah & Sawuya Nakijoba, 2019. "Estimating the Potential Output and Output Gap of Ghana," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 6(3), pages 58-70, May.
    15. Alessandro Turrini & Gabor Koltay & Fabiana Pierini & Clarisse Goffard & Aron Kiss, 2015. "A decade of labour market reforms in the EU: insights from the LABREF database," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-33, December.
    16. Stefan Domonkos & Andras Simonovits, 2016. "Pensions in transition in EU11 countries between 1990 and 2015," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1615, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    17. Ms. Juliana Dutra Araujo & Mr. Antonio David & Carlos van Hombeeck & Mr. Chris Papageorgiou, 2015. "Joining the Club? Procyclicality of Private Capital Inflows in Low Income Developing Countries," IMF Working Papers 2015/163, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Ali Alichi, 2015. "A New Methodology for Estimating the Output Gap in the United States," IMF Working Papers 2015/144, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Horst Feldmann, 2010. "Venture Capital Availability and Labor Market Performance in Industrial Countries: Evidence Based on Survey Data," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 23-54, February.
    20. Bertola, Giuseppe, 2017. "European unemployment revisited: Shocks, institutions, integration," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 588-612.
    21. Simon Sturn, 2011. "Labour market regimes and unemployment in OECD countries," IMK Working Paper 6-2011, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    NAIRU; Potential output; Unemployment gap; Kalman filter; Developing countries;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E27 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • C54 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Quantitative Policy Modeling

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:openec:v:30:y:2019:i:5:d:10.1007_s11079-019-09553-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.