Examining Structural Unemployment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Empirical Evidence from Unobserved Components

Ashwin Madhou () and Tayushma Sewak ()
Additional contact information
Ashwin Madhou: Central Bank of Mauritius

Open Economies Review, 2019, vol. 30, issue 5, No 4, 895-904

Abstract: Abstract We apply multivariate filtering techniques to quantify structural unemployment (NAIRU), potential output, output gap and unemployment gap for South Africa, Kenya, Mauritius and Ghana. NAIRU estimates are especially relevant for these inflation-targeting or hybrid inflation-targeting economies, allowing them to assess level of domestic slack and any potential build-up of inflationary pressures. Our findings suggest that increased government spending on education, a competitive exchange rate, and boosting the level of financial development (measured as the market capitalization of listed companies) can play a role in lowering NAIRU in these Sub-Saharan African countries.

Keywords: NAIRU; Potential output; Unemployment gap; Kalman filter; Developing countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C54 E24 E27 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11079-019-09553-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:openec:v:30:y:2019:i:5:d:10.1007_s11079-019-09553-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/11079/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11079-019-09553-7

Access Statistics for this article

Open Economies Review is currently edited by G.S. Tavlas

More articles in Open Economies Review from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().