Effect of Foreign Direct Investment on Growth-Unemployment Nexus

This paper examines the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the growth-unemployment nexus. A review of previous contributions on Okun’s law uncovered which aspects of international relations are more prone to affect growth-unemployment nexus. It was found that inward FDI and outward FDI are most likely to affect this nexus. EU-28 panel data and interactive model with pooled OLS estimator were used to empirically test whether both inward and outward FDI moderates the relationship between growth and unemployment. The estimations showed that, as expected, FDI weakens the effect of growth on unemployment. Moreover, with an increase in FDI, the effect of growth on unemployment becomes less statistically significant.

Validity and Asymmetry of Okun’s Law: Evidence from Asian Economies

This study investigates the validity and asymmetry of output-unemployment relationship for three groups: high income, upper middle income and lower middle income Asian Economies over the period of 1980-2018. This study investigates whether the behavior of labor markets is rigid or flexible in these economies over the sample period. By using the Hodrick and Prescott filter, the study finds a statistically significant relationship between cyclical output and cyclical unemployment; hence provides the evidence of the existence of Okun’s Law with more sensitive results for the lower middle economies as compared to other groups of countries. The study also discovers the evidence of asymmetric relationship of output-unemployment during the recessionary and expansionary period of economic growth. Although the value of coefficient varies due to asymmetry but the variation is found to be small across the three groups of the countries. The study concludes that sample economies have rigid labor markets indicating the persistence of structural unemployment.

Validity of Okun's law in Sri Lanka

The main goal of our research is to find out a relationship between the unemployment rate and the GDP growth rate in Sri Lanka according to Okun’s law and to know whether it can still be used as the best rule of thumb. This empirical analysis has employed the difference model, dynamic model, Error Correction Model (ECM) and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) to validate the relationship between the unemployment rate and economic growth suggested by Okun's Law. The study is based on Quarterly data from 2004 Q1 to 2019 Q4. The results obtained through the application of varies econometric techniques such as Ordinary least square (OLS), Engel-Granger approach and cointegration procedure. The study finds that, Okun’s law is supported only by the cointegration analysis as expected by the Okun’s law in Sri Lanka. However, all other versions were reported negative Okun’s law coefficient signs while these results are not statistically significant. Overall this study is not able to found enough evidence to prove the inverse relationship between unemployment rate and economic growth rate in short run and able to found that Okun’s law can still be used as the best rule of thumb to describe the relationship between the unemployment and GDP growth in long term in Sri Lanka.

Unemployment in Spain: The failure of wage devaluation

This article analyses from a Keynesian approach the effect of wage devaluation on the Spanish labour market during the Great Recession post-2008. It challenges the pro-flexibility literature, which attributes to labour relations reforms the prevention of larger job destruction in the recession and a larger reduction in unemployment during the subsequent expansion. Instead, we examine the role of wage devaluation in the operation of Okun’s law and gross domestic product, using an extended version of the Bhaduri–Marglin model. We find that wage devaluation has not significantly modified Okun’s law and that through its impact on income distribution, the unemployment rate rose by 1.9 percentage points. We therefore provide evidence for the negative effect of wage devaluation on gross domestic product and the positive effect on the unemployment rate. JEL Codes: C22, E11, E24