Unemployment and long-run economic growth: The role of income inequality and urbanisation

David Castells-Quintana () and Vicente Royuela

INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH, 2012, issue 24, 153-173

Abstract: Two of the most dramatic aspects of the current economic crisis are with no doubt the experience of high and persistent rates of unemployment and the accelerated pace at which inequalities increase. But high and persistent levels of unemployment and increasing inequality are more than a consequence of scarcer opportunities related to the crisis; they can also be negative determinants for subsequent long-run economic growth. In this work, we consider unemployment and income inequality, and interactions between both, as possible determinants of longrun growth by using cross-sectional international data. Our results suggest that: 1) while initial high unemployment rates do not seem to be statistically significant to explain long-run growth, they do have a negative and significant effect when interacting with increases in inequality. 2) When we differentiate based on levels of urbanization, increasing inequality harms growth in countries with high levels of urbanization, as well as in countries with low levels of urbanization in which there is high and persistent unemployment.

Keywords: Unemployment; urbanization; inequality; economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J60 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aecr.org/images/ImatgesArticles/2012/12 ... _Vicente_Royuela.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

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:ris:invreg:0007

Access Statistics for this article

INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH is currently edited by Vicente Royuela Mora

More articles in INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH from Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional C/ Viladomat, 321 entresuelo - 08029 Barcelona, Teléfono y Fax: + 34 933101112, E-mail: info@aecr.org, Web: www.aecr.org, Web Investigaciones Regionales: www.investigacionesregionales.org. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by IIRR-JORR ().