TITLE:
Unemployment Rate in ECCAS Countries: Structural Changes and Stochastic Convergence
AUTHORS:
Jean Roméo Félix Kouika Bouanza, Mathias Marie Adrien Ndinga
KEYWORDS:
Unemployment, CEMAC, Hysteresis, Stochastic Divergence
JOURNAL NAME:
Modern Economy,
Vol.11 No.11,
November
20,
2020
ABSTRACT: This paper aims, on the one hand, to specify the
dates of potential breaks (or shocks) in the unemployment rate times series of
ECCAS countries while verifying whether these shocks, notably accession to
CEMAC, could have generated permanent effects and, on the other hand, to assess
the hypothesis of stochastic divergence of the unemployment rate. To this end,
an econometric analysis is carried out based on unemployment rate time series
at quarterly frequency (1991-2018). The results suggest that overall, there is
no presence of the hysteresis effect and that CEMAC accession had a significant
transitory effect only in Equatorial Guinea. Overall, effective unemployment
rates converge towards the average level in the subregion during the sample period.