Unemployment hysteresis in the English-speaking Caribbean: evidence from non-linear models

In the Caribbean Basin, as in many other parts of the world, unemployment, with rates between 15 and 30 percent, has become one of the major problems affecting these societies. This article highlights the specific characteristics of Caribbean unemployment, contrasting them with those observed in the industrialized and developed nations. Secondly, it summarizes the main ideas that have been proposed to explain the problem of unemployment hysteresis and discusses their appropriateness in the case of the countries under consideration. Finally, it uses the framework of threshold models and processes with nonlinearities in the mean to empirically examine the hypothesis of hysteresis. The results supported these nonlinear specifications: for Barbados, an LSTAR model is preferred while in the case of Trinidad and Tobago, an ESTAR specification is selected.