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Okun in the Euro: New Evidence from Structural Okun Law’s Estimates for the Euro Area, 1979-2019

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Listed:
  • Nauro F. Campos
  • Corrado Macchiarelli
  • Fotios Mitropoulos

Abstract

This paper provides new estimates of Okun’s unemployment-output relationship in euro area countries between 1979 and 2019. We find our structural estimates are stable but substantially lower than the reduced-form estimates that tend to characterise the literature and that the responsiveness of output to unemployment is driven by idiosyncratic factors in both euro core and periphery countries. The results are robust to conditioning on wage bargaining institutional set-ups and, yet, in the euro periphery, we find product market regulation as playing a major role in explaining the significance of Okun’s law estimates across countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Nauro F. Campos & Corrado Macchiarelli & Fotios Mitropoulos, 2024. "Okun in the Euro: New Evidence from Structural Okun Law’s Estimates for the Euro Area, 1979-2019," CESifo Working Paper Series 11314, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11314
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic growth; unemployment; Okun’s Law; panel VAR;
    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
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises

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