This paper explores the mean-reverting behavior of the unemployment rate using monthly geographically disaggregated data for the period 1991:01 through 2012:02. We apply both standard unit-root tests and tests that allow for one and two structural breaks in the mean. We find evidence that favors...

This paper proposes an empirical framework to estimate Okun's law which focuses on structural breaks and threshold nonlinearity. We use sequentially the Bai and Perron's (1998, 2003) structural break and threshold methodology to enable regime-dependent as well as threshold-dependent changes in...

By international standards, unemployment in Sweden remained remarkably low throughout the 1970s and the 1980s. In the early 1990s, however, the unemployment rate skyrocketed and hit double-digit levels. Unemployment remained high for several years but exhibited a marked fall from 1997 and...