The Unassuming Economist

A new paper finds that “Okun’s Law is valid in Brazil as a whole and in one of the three metropolitan regions studied and there are regional differences in the responsiveness of labor markets to output fluctuations and deviations from their long-term levels.”

This paper also notes the findings from my paper that “The Okun’s coefficient varies substantially from country to country. Idiosyncratic characteristics of national labor markets explain in part this variation. (Ball; Leigh; Loungani, 2012).” […] “According to Ball, Jalles and Loungani (2014) the magnitude of the coefficient also depends on the costs related to the adjustment of employment, which can be either technological costs or costs arising from the employment protection laws; and the number of workers entering and leaving the labor force. Because these factors are different between countries so tend also to be the coefficients.”

Continue reading here.

Ball, Leigh, and Loungani (2012) is available here.

Ball, Jalles, and Loungani (2014) is available here.