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Convergence in West German Regional Unemployment Rates

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Falko Juessen ()
Christian Bayer ()

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Abstract

Differences in regional unemployment rates are often used to describe regional economic inequality. This paper asks whether changes in regional unemployment differences in West Germany are persistent over time. Only if such changes are persistent, the differences are a sensible measure of inequality and only then can policies be effective that aim at lowering the dispersion of unemployment rates. Our analysis follows a time-series approach to economic convergence and we test whether unemployment differences between regions are stationary or not. While univariate tests show that changes in unemployment differences are persistent, more powerful panel tests find them to be only transitory. However, these tests reveal only a moderate speed of convergence. Since there is a structural break following the second oil crisis, we also employ unit-root tests that allow for such break. Again we find strong evidence for convergence and now also the speed of convergence is found to be very high. Both results, the presence of regime-wise conditional convergence in regional unemployment rates and fast equilibrium adjustment, have important implications for economic policy targeted at regional unemployment. On the one hand, small government interventions loose their effect quickly as unemployment rates adjust back to their equilibrium levels. On the other hand, large interventions might move the economy from one equilibrium of regional unemployment rates to the other. This means the policy intervention needs to take the form of a substantial regime shift. Most policies that aim at reducing relative unemployment differentials are unlikely to make permanent contributions to social welfare.

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Paper provided by European Regional Science Association in its series ERSA conference papers with number ersa05p410.

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Date of creation: Aug 2005
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Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p410

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  1. Bernard, Andrew B. & Durlauf, Steven N., 1996. "Interpreting tests of the convergence hypothesis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1-2), pages 161-173. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. David H. Papell & Christian J. Murray & Hala Ghiblawi, 2000. "The Structure of Unemployment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 309-315, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Andrew Glyn & Robert Rowthorn, 2002. "Convergence and Stability in US Regional Employment," Economics Series Working Papers 092, University of Oxford, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  4. Decressin, Jorg & Fatas, Antonio, 1995. "Regional labor market dynamics in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 1627-1655, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Lawrence F. Katz, 1992. "Regional Evolutions," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(1992-1), pages 1-76. [Downloadable!]
  6. Zivot, Eric & Andrews, Donald W K, 1992. "Further Evidence on the Great Crash, the Oil-Price Shock, and the Unit-Root Hypothesis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(3), pages 251-70, July.
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  7. Perron, Pierre & Vogelsang, Timothy J, 1992. "Nonstationarity and Level Shifts with an Application to Purchasing Power Parity," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(3), pages 301-20, July.
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  8. Elliott, Graham & Rothenberg, Thomas J & Stock, James H, 1996. "Efficient Tests for an Autoregressive Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(4), pages 813-36, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Perron, Pierre, 1997. "Further evidence on breaking trend functions in macroeconomic variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 355-385, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Peter C.B. Phillips & Pierre Perron, 1986. "Testing for a Unit Root in Time Series Regression," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 795R, Cowles Foundation, Yale University, revised Sep 1987. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Reutter, Michael, 2000. "Hysteresis in West German Unemployment Reconsidered," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
  12. Marston, Stephen T, 1985. "Two Views of the Geographic Distribution of Unemployment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 57-79, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Maddala, G S & Wu, Shaowen, 1999. " A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(0), pages 631-52, Special I. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Quah, Danny T., 1996. "Empirics for economic growth and convergence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1353-1375, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Bruce E. Hansen, 2001. "The New Econometrics of Structural Change: Dating Breaks in U.S. Labour Productivity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 117-128, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Ron Martin, 1997. "Regional Unemployment Disparities and their Dynamics," Regional Studies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 237-252, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Im, Kyung So & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 2003. "Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 53-74, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Evans, Paul & Karras, Georgios, 1996. "Convergence revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 249-265, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Maurice Obstfeld & Giovanni Peri, 1998. "Regional non-adjustment and fiscal policy," Economic Policy, CEPR, CES, MSH, vol. 13(26), pages 205-259, 04. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Bernard, Andrew B & Durlauf, Steven N, 1995. "Convergence in International Output," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(2), pages 97-108, April-Jun. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Gomes, F. A. R. & Silva, C. G., 2007. "Hysteresis vs. NAIRU and Convergence vs. Divergence: The behavior of regional unemployment rates in Brazil," Ibmec Working Papers wpe_71, Ibmec Working Paper, Ibmec São Paulo. [Downloadable!]
  2. Darja Boršiè & Alenka Kavkler, 2009. "Duration of Regional Unemployment Spells in Slovenia," Managing Global Transitions, University of Primorska, Faculty of Management Koper, vol. 7(2), pages 123-146. [Downloadable!]
  3. Fábio Augusto Reis Gomes & Cleomar Gomes da Silva, 2006. "Hysteresis Vs. Nairu And Convergence Vs. Divergence: The Behavior Of Regional Unemployment Rates In Brazil," Anais do XXXIV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 34th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 161, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pósgraduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics]. [Downloadable!]
  4. David Katrencik & Joanna Tyrowicz & Piotr Wójcik, 2008. "Unemployment Convergence in Transition," Working Papers 2008-07, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw. [Downloadable!]
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