Regional Okun's law, endogeneity, and heterogeneous effects: District-level evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

This paper investigates the regional Okun’s law across 514 districts of Indonesia over the 2011-2020 period. To handle the endogeneity issue of the econometric specification, we apply a two-stage least squares (2SLS) model and use regional temperature as instrumentfor economic growth. Our results show that the Okun’s coefficient becomes statistically significant only after endogeneity is addressed. Consistent with the prevalent economic divide between the western and eastern regions of Indonesia, we find that Okun’s law applies solely to the more industrialized western regions

Carlos Mendez

Associate Professor of Development Economics

My research interests focus on the integration of development economics, spatial data science, and econometrics to understand and inform the process of sustainable development across subnational regions and countries.