Concluding Remarks

Abstract

This chapter provides some concluding remarks to the PANIC and Granger-causality analyses conducted in the main body of this work. Some further policy implications are also drawn. The high degree of persistence found in Spanish regional unemployment calls for cautious aggregate demand stabilization policies, since they may exert permanent (or at least long-lasting) effects on Spanish unemployment. The high degree of persistence in unemployment further gives an indication that labour market reforms implemented in the Spanish economy in recent decades were not optimally designed to combat the underlying sources of hysteresis. Once the current crisis comes to an end, analysts will be able to assess the benefits reaped from the 2010–2012 labour market reforms and whether they have eroded some of the well-rooted persistence mechanisms at work in the Spanish labour market.