All Rights Reserved
AccessEcon LLC 2006, 2008.
Powered by MinhViet JSC

 
Binet Marie-estelle and Francois Facchini
 
''Okun's law in the french regions: a cross-regional comparison''
( 2013, Vol. 33 No.1 )
 
 
This article tackles one central issue in the regional science literature: the persistence of regional disparities in unemployment within national economies. Our approach is original as Okun's coefficients are estimated for each of the 22 administrative French regions over the period 1990–2008, taking into account cross-regional disparities in a panel data specification. Estimates show that the coefficients exhibit regional differences. Indeed, Okun's law is confirmed in fourteen regions, although it does not hold in the other eight regions. Finally, region-specific factors that explain the results that are not significant are identified, and policies to reduce unemployment in French regions are examined.
 
 
Keywords: Okun's law, regional labour markets, panel data
JEL: J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies: General
R1 - General Regional Economics (includes Regional Data)
 
Manuscript Received : Aug 27 2012 Manuscript Accepted : Feb 21 2013

  This abstract has been downloaded 1503 times                The Full PDF of this paper has been downloaded 169487 times