Unemployment and Regional Economic Activity: A Cyclical Approach

Abstract

This paper analyzes the cyclical behavior of production and unemployment at regional level, using Chilean quarterly data which spans between 1986:Q1 and 2005:Q4. Once the data set is characterized, it proceeds to modeling the cyclical performance of regional unemployment using auto regressive components (in the form of polynomial distributed lags), and related variables, such as commodities prices, e.g. fruit, copper, oil, salmon. The aim of this approach is to forecast the regional unemployment cyclical behavior for quarters 2006:Q1 and 2006:Q4. The results suggests a notorious unemployment reduction in regions II and V, and a slightly reduction in regions III, IV, X and XII. Moreover, unemployment's cycle will not leave its expansive phase in regions I, VI, XI and RM. Finally, the models predict a rise on unemployment in regions VII and IX, and it will maintain its previous level in region VIII.business cycle; unemployment; forecasting