The causes of Spanish unemployment: A structural VAR approach

In this paper, we review the main causes of Spanish unemployment and weight them by estimating a simple macroeconomic model using the structural VAR methodology. By using this methodology we associate different causes of unemployment with shocks of different nature which have long-lasting effects due to full hysteresis. We claim that such an extreme assumption on 'state dependency' is reasonable, at least as a local approximation, for the period and the economy at hand. Our results suggest that the combination of a plausible mixture of different types of shock and extreme persistence in their propagation mechanisms can satisfactorily explain the dismal performance of the Spanish labour market during the last two decades. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.