Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Okun's Law: Fit at 50?

Contents:

Author Info

  • Laurence M. Ball
  • Daniel Leigh
  • Prakash Loungani

Abstract

This paper asks how well Okun's Law fits short-run unemployment movements in the United States since 1948 and in twenty advanced economies since 1980. We find that Okun's Law isa strong and stable relationship in most countries, one that did not change substantiallyduring the Great Recession. Accounts of breakdowns in the Law, such as the emergence of'jobless recoveries,' are flawed. We also find that the coefficient in the relationship-the effect of a one percent change in output on the unemployment rate-varies substantially across countries. This variation is partly explained by idiosyncratic features of national labormarkets, but it is not related to differences in employment protection legislation.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=40236
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by International Monetary Fund in its series IMF Working Papers with number 13/10.

as in new window
Length: 40
Date of creation: 14 Jan 2013
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:13/10

Contact details of provider:
Postal: International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA
Phone: (202) 623-7000
Fax: (202) 623-4661
Email:
Web page: http://www.imf.org/external/pubind.htm
More information through EDIRC

Order Information:
Web: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Related research

Keywords: Unemployment; United States; Developed countries; Labor markets; Cross country analysis; Economic models; Unemploymnent; Okun's law; Economic fluctuations.;

Other versions of this item:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

No references listed on IDEAS
You can help add them by filling out this form.

Citations

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:13/10

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jim Beardow) or (Hassan Zaidi).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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