Unemployment rates vary over both time and space. In this article we seek to understand why the unemployment rate varies from area to area, using districtlevel data from the Midi-Pyr´en´ees region of France. The unemployment rate in any given area is determined more by national than by local effects (OCDE 1997), and most of the theoretical and empirical work on the subject reflects this (e.g., Artus and Muet 1995). Thus the unemployment rate in the Midi Pyr´en´ees region has evolved in line with the national unemployment rate, rising gradually from 3.2% in 1974 to 11.3% by January 1995. The rise in unemployment occurred despite robust growth in the Toulouse area, which was driven in large part by the rise of the aerospace sector.
Although regional unemployment rates move broadly in line with the national rate, differences across regions tend to persist over long periods of time, and 30% of regional movements in the unemployment rate cannot be explained at the national level (OECD cited by Tervo 1998). The correlation coefficient between the unemployment rates in France’s 22 regions in 1974 and the unemployment rates in 1994 was 0.62 (Maillard 1997, p. 156), which indicates a very substantial degree of persistence in inter-regional differentials in unemployment rates.
Negative Calories. What are they? Negative Calorie foods have what we will refer to as a —negative calorie effect.“ To give you an idea of what that means, we‘ll go through the process. You eat an apple. The apple you consume has 80 calories however, your body‘s chemical processing, digestion and breakdown of that apple causes you to burn off 100 calories thus, your negative calorie effect is œ20 calories. Can you see the implications of a diet based on this premise?
Let‘s talk about the word diet. What images do you conjure up when you see or hear that word? I think of starving. I think of not ever getting full when I sit down to a meal. I think of all the foods that I like. I think of all the foods that I‘m missing. What do you think?
The reaction of private consumption to government expenditure in Estonia has gained little interest in previous literature. However, some facts might have been overlooked. First, the consolidated government budget has been out of balance. Second, Estonian consumers, it is often argued, have strong liquidity constraints – are less capable of taking loans against future income. This might have been true at the beginning of the transition period, but does not correspond to the situation where the public is worried about a lending boom. The objective of this paper is to estimate the extent of Ricardian equivalence in the Estonian economy. To that end the liquidity constraints and finite planning horizons are analysed and empirical estimations carried out.
The existence of Ricardian equivalence has been much debated in previous literature. However, there are no conclusive answers. The literature in favour stresses the importance of consumption smoothing and government bonds as not part of net wealth (Barro 1974). One of the most popular arguments for rejecting Ricardian equivalence is that it assumes perfect capital markets. Seater (1993) counts 12 arguments for why Ricardian equivalence might not hold. Many authors have taken a moderate position, where they see some of the effects of government consumption, but do not see the evidence giving full support to the hypothesis.
