IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/irapec/v23y2009i4p445-462.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A strong hysteretic model of Okun's Law: theory and a preliminary investigation

Author

Listed:
  • Dany Lang
  • Christian de Peretti

Abstract

This paper presents a 'strong hysteretic' version of Okun's Law, that is, a version of the law in which 'history matters.' In this version of the link between fluctuations in unemployment and growth, the most important past growth shock exerts an influence on the current unemployment rate. A theoretical framework is proposed in order to lay the foundations of this version of Okun's Law. In this framework, the hysteresis property arises because a large number of heterogeneous firms discontinuously adjust their activity levels in response to fluctuations in the rate of growth. The foundations having been laid, a method for empirically testing our hysteretic Okun's Law is presented. An algorithm permits construction of a hysteresis operator, which synthesizes, for every moment, the growth shocks that have remained in the memory bank of the unemployment rate. Empirical tests are conducted to assess the empirical relevance of this version of Okun's Law, as compared to the more familiar linear relationship. Empirical results consistent with hysteresis are found for several of the countries in our sample.

Suggested Citation

  • Dany Lang & Christian de Peretti, 2009. "A strong hysteretic model of Okun's Law: theory and a preliminary investigation," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 445-462.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:irapec:v:23:y:2009:i:4:p:445-462
    DOI: 10.1080/02692170902954775
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02692170902954775
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/02692170902954775?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cross,Rod Preface by-Name:Blanchard,Olivier (ed.), 1995. "The Natural Rate of Unemployment," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521483308.
    2. Giovanni Urga & Christian de Peretti, 2004. "Stopping Tests in the Sequential Estimation for Multiple Structural Breaks," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 320, Econometric Society.
    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. Koutroulis, Aristotelis & Panagopoulos, Yannis & Tsouma, Ekaterini, 2016. "Asymmetry in the response of unemployment to output changes in Greece: Evidence from hidden co-integration," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 81-88.
    2. Paulo R. Mota & Paulo B. Vasconcelos, 2018. "Does the Deregulation of the Labour Market Reduce Employment Hysteresis? An Analysis in a Low Interest Rate Environment," FEP Working Papers 611, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    3. Roger Perman & Gaetan Stephan & Christophe Tavéra, 2015. "Okun's Law—a Meta-analysis," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83(1), pages 101-126, January.
    4. Kavese Kambale & Phiri Andrew, 2020. "A Provincial Perspective of Nonlinear Okun’s Law for Emerging Markets: The Case of South Africa," Studia Universitatis „Vasile Goldis” Arad – Economics Series, Sciendo, vol. 30(3), pages 59-76, September.
    5. Christian Peretti, 2007. "Long Memory and Hysteresis," Springer Books, in: Gilles Teyssière & Alan P. Kirman (ed.), Long Memory in Economics, pages 363-389, Springer.
    6. Federico Bassi, 2016. "Aggregate demand, sunk costs and discontinuous adjustments in an amended new consensus model," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 313-335, July.
    7. Andrew Phiri, 2019. "Fitting Okun's law for the Swazi Kingdom: Will a nonlinear specification do?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(2), pages 1371-1383.
    8. Angel Asensio & Dany Lang & Sébastien Charles, 2012. "Post Keynesian modeling: where are we, and where are we going to?," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3), pages 393-412.
    9. Asensio, Angel & Charles, Sébastien & Lang, Dany & Le Heron, Edwin, 2011. "Les développements récents de la macroéconomie post-keynésienne," Revue de la Régulation - Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, Association Recherche et Régulation, vol. 10.
    10. KARGI, Bilal, 2014. "Okun’s Law and Long Term Co-Integration Analysis for OECD Countries (1987-2012)," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 119, pages 77-85.
    11. Lal, Irfan & Mohammad, Sulaiman D. & Hussain, Adnan & Jalil, Anwar, 2012. "Test of Okun’s Law in Some Asian Countries Co-Integration Approach," MPRA Paper 106934, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Roger, Perman & Gaetan, Stephan & Christophe, Tavéra, 2013. "Okun’s law – A meta analysis," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-59, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    13. Clévenot, Mickaël, 2011. "Post-keynésianisme et théorie de la régulation : des perspectives communes," Revue de la Régulation - Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, Association Recherche et Régulation, vol. 10.
    14. Bassi, Federico & Lang, Dany, 2016. "Investment hysteresis and potential output: A post-Keynesian–Kaleckian agent-based approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PA), pages 35-49.
    15. Kargı, Bilal, 2014. "The Data of Labor Market in Turkey and Time Series Analysis on Economic Growth (2000:01-2013:03)," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 3(3), pages 98-102.
    16. Váry, Miklós, 2018. "A hiszterézis közgazdasági jelentőségéről posztkeynesi szemléletben [The economic relevance of hysteresis from a post-Keynesian perspective]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 1006-1047.
    17. Paulo R. Mota & Abel L. C. Fernandes & Paulo B. Vasconcelos, 2018. "Employment Hysteresis: An Argument For Avoiding Front-Loaded Fiscal Consolidations In The Eurozone," FEP Working Papers 610, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    18. Phiri, Andrew, 2014. "Re-evaluating Okun's law in South Africa: A nonlinear co-integration approach," MPRA Paper 57398, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Giorgio Canarella & Stephen M. Miller, 2017. "Did Okun’s law die after the Great Recession?," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 216-226, October.
    20. Dany Lang & Mark Setterfield, 2012. "Faith-based Macroeconomics: A Critique of Recent Developments in NAIRU Estimation," Chapters, in: Claude Gnos & Louis-Philippe Rochon & Domenica Tropeano (ed.), Employment, Growth and Development, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    21. Mariam Camarero & Juan Sapena & Cecilio Tamarit, 2024. "Introducing sspaneltvp: a code to estimating state-space time varying parameter models in panels. An application to Okun’s law," Working Papers 2405, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    22. 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.

    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. Matteo Mogliani, 2010. "Residual-based tests for cointegration and multiple deterministic structural breaks: A Monte Carlo study," Working Papers halshs-00564897, HAL.
    2. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/6120 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Eric Heyer, 2011. "The effectiveness of economic policy and position in the cycle: the case of tax reductions on overtime in France," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 27(2), pages 364-379.
    4. Mehrdad Vahabi, 1998. "The Relevance of the Marshallian Concept of Normality in Interior and in Inertial Dynamics as Revisited by G. SHACKLE and J. KORNAI," Post-Print hal-00629181, HAL.
    5. T. D. Stanley, 2002. "When all are NAIRU: hysteresis and behavioural inertia," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(11), pages 753-757.
    6. Mariam Camarero & Josep Lluís Carrion-i-Silvestre & Cecilio Tamarit, 2004. "Testing for hysteresis in unemployment in OECD countries. New evidence using stationarity panel tests with breaks†," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces 2004/40, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    7. Guglielmo Caporale & Luis Gil-Alana, 2009. "Multiple shifts and fractional integration in the US and UK unemployment rates," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 33(4), pages 364-375, October.
    8. Ronald Schettkat & Rongrong Sun, 2009. "Monetary policy and European unemployment," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 25(1), pages 94-108, Spring.
    9. Jérôme Creel & Eric Heyer & Mathieu Plane, 2011. "Petit précis de politique budgétaire par tous les temps," Post-Print hal-03460510, HAL.
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5l6uh8ogmqildh09h561p0po1 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Nakatani, Takeshi & Skott, Peter, 2007. "Japanese growth and stagnation: A Keynesian perspective," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 306-332, September.
    12. Amitava Krishna Dutt & Peter Skott, 2006. "Keynesian Theory and the AD-AS Framework: A Reconsideration," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Quantitative and Empirical Analysis of Nonlinear Dynamic Macromodels, pages 149-172, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    13. Malcolm Sawyer, 1997. "The NAIRU: A Critical Appraisal," Macroeconomics 9712013, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Aurélien GAIMON & Vincent LAPEGUE & Paola MONPERRUS-VERONI & Noé N’SEMI & Frédéric REYNÈS & Maël THEULIERE, 2007. "Does the interaction between shocks and institutions solve the OECD unemployment puzzle? a Theoretical and Empirical Appraisal," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2007-34, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    15. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/2005 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Lucas Papademos, 2005. "Macroeconomic theory and monetary policy: the contributions of Franco Modigliani and the ongoing debate," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 58(233-234), pages 187-214.
    17. Ronald Schettkat & Rongrong Sun, 2009. "Nicht zu früh bremsen! - Der Einfluss der Geldpolitik auf die langfristige Wirtschaftsentwicklung in Deutschland und den USA-," Schumpeter Discussion Papers sdp09003, Universitätsbibliothek Wuppertal, University Library.
    18. Jérôme Creel & Éric Heyer & Mathieu Plane, 2011. "Petit précis de politique budgétaire par tous les temps. Les multiplicateurs budgétaires au cours du cycle," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 61-88.
    19. Matteo Lanzafame, 2010. "The nature of regional unemployment in Italy," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 877-895, December.
    20. Bozani, Vasiliki & Drydakis, Nick, 2011. "Studying the NAIRU and its Implications," IZA Discussion Papers 6079, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Magnus Gustavsson & Pär Österholm, 2010. "The presence of unemployment hysteresis in the OECD: what can we learn from out-of-sample forecasts?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 779-792, June.
    22. Michel De Vroey, 1997. "Le concept de chômage involontaire : de Keynes aux nouveaux keynésiens," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 48(6), pages 1381-1408.
    23. Escañuela Romana, Ignacio, 2016. "Azar, Determinismo e Indecidibilidad en la Teoría del Ciclo Económico [Randomness, Determinism and Undecidability in the Business Cycle Theory]," MPRA Paper 72978, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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:taf:irapec:v:23:y:2009:i:4:p:445-462. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CIRA20 .

    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.