Explaining Unemployment in the Caribbean Again
Roland Craigwell, Allan Wright

Abstract
This paper attempts to determine the main factors that influence the high and persistent unemployment rates in three Caribbean countries – Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago - using quarterly data covering the post 2000 period. Unlike previous work, it shows by applying dynamic ordinary least squares that the unemployment phenomenon can be explained by the growth and volatility of local income as well as income of these countries leading trading partners. Several conditional variance models are also utilised to examine persistence volatility in the unemployment rates and the speed of recovery to long run equilibrium after a shock.

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